Chapter Twenty-One: A Bitter Pill
AN: as this is my version of the death of Hadriana there are – of course – trigger warnings. Torture, rape, abuse, suicidal ideation. These are references rather than graphic scenes but might be disturbing.
A brilliant sun burned down on the four companions as they left the Planascene forest and headed for Kirkwall. To their left, a succession of hills and rocky paths led to the Dalish encampment on Sundermount; behind these, the Vinmark mountains brooded in monumental indifference. To their right, the Wounded Coast disintegrated into the Waking Sea. Staring into the silver waves, Fenris saw kelp tendrils sway and imagined slithering tentacles. Tearing his gaze from that, he pictured the throne of Danarius, where white-rotten mages watched slaves dance attendance. Fenris frowned. Imagination was a bad habit he had picked up from Lambert – a foolish self-indulgence that could blind him to the very real dangers around every corner. And why should he think of Danarius now?
To settle himself, he examined his surroundings. Normally, he paid little attention to the concept of beauty. The first beauty he had ever known had come when Lambert smiled at him. That did not mean Lambert himself was handsome – although he was, ridiculously so – but that he had a smile that made people think of beautiful things. Fenris had distrusted it, of course – Danarius had been a Blood Mage who could put thoughts in a person's mind they would swear were their own (he had often bragged of doing this to sway outcomes in the Senate) - but had never been able to see a motive behind it. For one thing, Danarius would have found no purpose in making a person see beauty; for another, he would have lacked the beauty in his own thoughts to transmit. Eventually, when learning what a fumbling mage Lambert was – in Tevinter they would have called him barely above a soporati – Fenris realized he was doing it unconsciously and it had nothing to do with magic. Lambert could transmit imagination the way, in his former profession, he had been able to transmit lust. It was like a bright shadow that flowed from him into the real world and transformed all common things. In the depths of Fenris' hatred – the dark growth Danarius had put there – all this was given him as an unexpected gift. He could see the beauty this land had now, in almost overwhelming abundance. Trees, darkly green, cloaked towering mountains. Just ahead, a rivulet leaped from a cliff face. The silvered froth of it tumbled eagerly to the cobble beach, raced to embrace the Waking Sea. Crystal green combers rose high, charged the beach. Sunshine dappled their spume-crowned heads; blasted shifting, dazzling light patterns through their heaving bodies. They threw themselves at Fenris' feet. Slaves.
A harsh voice in a shockingly familiar accent tore apart the sunshine and friendship. The figure was one of thirteen staring down at them from high ground like birds of prey. Beneath the rage rage rage at himself for becoming so distracted by ephemeral things he had failed to notice the presence of slavers, Fenris knew a chill of absolute terror. This was no accident. They had come for him.
"Stop right there! You are in possession of stolen property." He was addressing Lambert, of course – as a human, he assumed Lambert his new owner. He would not have addressed Fenris any more than he would have addressed a dog or a horse. "Back away from the slave now and you'll be spared."
Beside him, Fenris was aware of Tallis readying weapons to fight these creatures just as she had helped them fight the wyvern. She hated Fenris as she hated the others, for his part in foiling her plan to kill Salit, but she would leave no-one to the slavery she had escaped herself. Varric drew the safety catch from Bianca. Lambert shouted furiously "Fenris is a free man!" Fenris might have groaned at Lambert's tendency to be verbose when silent steel would be smarter, but it was – pleasant - to hear the support. Stupid, he scoffed.
"I won't repeat myself, Back away from the slave now!"
Fenris had already phased. An instant later the Blue Wraith stood beside the slaver, holding the man's heart. Fenris was covered with blood. A strange, floating sensation filled him. His arms grew heavy with swelling, arrogant strength. Fenris reaped a fearsome harvest; watched them sprawl lifeless like squashed insects. Lethandralis was alive to his touch, his thoughts, responding, demanding. Tallis threw daggers that unerringly found their targets – an eye, a throat. Lambert cast the Litany of Adralla to protect them from the Blood Magic the slaver mage was casting. His notes – pure and clean and precise as starlight – spiked the cold, clean air; drove away the heavy darkness of blood magic. A single note, crystalline, became a shimmering shield – a colourless armour that flowed with them like water. When the sound broke, transformed into glittering trills, the change was almost visible, as if the music suddenly turned to ice splinters. The report of Bianca, mowing down the Tevinter bodyguards, had the majesty of distant thunder. Twelve bodies and discarded weapons littered the beach. The thirteenth lived, just barely, and hauled himself upright to a sitting position. Like a predator, Fenris reached down, drew his head back to open his throat.
"Where is he?" he growled, harsh as metal grinding on stone.
"Please...don't..."
Fenris slammed the slaver's face into the rocks, wanting it to burst like a ripe melon. He yanked him upright, and the man watched through shattered nose and jaw, with eyes swelling shut.
"Tell me!"
"I... don't...know. Hadriana brought us. She's at the Holding Caves. Let me go. I beg you."
There was a pleading whine in the slaver's voice, and Fenris was reminded of a dog that wagged its tail and wiggled welcome before snapping at his throat. He snapped the bastard's neck. Now he could bargain with the Maker. He turned to Lambert and the others and said one word:
"Hadriana." The name was a dark-shrouded sigh of hatred. "I was a fool to think I was free. If she's here, it's at Danarius' bidding. They'll never let me be!"
"They need to be stopped before this goes any further." Lambert looked to Varric for support – the dwarf nodded and hefted Bianca - then he turned to Tallis,
"Tallis - you've got no reason to help us," he said softly.
Tallis ignored him, speaking only to Fenris. "And this is why you should join the Arishok," she said coldly, "He is a man who would never let a convert be taken. Join the Qun, and you will be safe from your former master. There is no other way."
"No," said Fenris flatly, "The price is not one I am willing to pay. No one will ever take my self from me again. I hope that we do not meet again." If they did, it could only be on the battlefield.
"Of course," Varric interjected smoothly, "When you report to the Arishok you will have to explain that you went on an unauthorized mission – and then failed. If you help us first, you will at least be able to report you struck a blow against Tevinter."
Tallis looked at Varric with hatred. She said to Fenris, "I see that these are the two patrons you believe will protect you. But one day you will learn the price for serving Lord Amell – an apostate mage – and you may wish you had chosen differently. Nonetheless – I will help you. For now."
Fenris was startled – and grateful. "The Holding Caves held slaves in the old times. Apparently, they are no longer abandoned. We must go quickly, before Hadriana has a chance to prepare – or flee."
The four turned northwards away from Kirkwall – whose white spires loomed in the distance "like the teeth of some vast, noble creature" Lambert had said once. His words had painted a picture inside Fenris' mind – the first time in his life he had ever possessed an image that was not real, yet beautiful. Pale rain glistened on the surface of faraway boulders the size of snails, upon hills wreathed in colourless mist. Dotted about were misshapen trees, whose leaves were red as blood, beginning to fall from skeletal branches that held up a sky vast and featureless as a lake of white ice. Along the winding pathway up the rocky hills, Lambert foraged some embrium – Fenris supposed his time as an army medic had inculcated the idea that, however bleak your surroundings, you gathered medicinal herbs when you could.
The cave entrance was like an open maw inside the rock. Four men guarded it, but they were not mages and Fenris and Tallis made short work of them – the two assassins killing so quickly their victims didn't even have time to be afraid.
"We must be careful," Fenris told his three companions, "There were many such holdings once, especially in the mountains, where individual slavers kept private pens. They were designed to protect against raids by fellow slavers. No doubt it's why Hadriana chose this place."
"Do slavers attack each other often?" Varric wanted to know. In the pulp fiction he wrote, the bad guys were all on the same side, the heroes on the opposing side. He was apparently working on something called 'The Tale of the Champion,' though he had not yet revealed the identity of the eponymous hero. Fenris merely snorted.
The cellar was dark as the wine cellars of Lambert's mansion, but what lay inside was not wine, but the things that looked like skinned animals before a feast, and the instruments that... Fenris' hands clenched, his tongue felt suddenly too large for his mouth, the blood in his ears thudded. His mind balked, fragmented...the memories dissolved like a nightmare upon waking. He had only a confused image of the day he had received the brands...of Danarius' form melting and crawling and changing like a misshapen candle...becoming that of a huge silver insect that held him down...injected a proboscis that paralyzed his muscles and pumped him full of poison...fingered every thought, every feeling, every memory...his whole life torn open, everything exposed. Nothing left that was his. He had been erased as thoroughly as if his ability to phase had been pushed to its conclusion.
Sometimes Fenris could remember pieces of the past – little bright images that were incalculably precious to him, but they were like fragments of a broken mirror: bright shards of hope that cut his palms when he grasped too hard. He would reach for them only to find he had gathered empty darkness. As he peered at the jewels they slipped from his grasp – fading back to the comfortably numb haze of forgetfulness. Pieces of his memory were drowning in the shadows even now. And the worst of it was – he still drank to forget...
Bodies lay upon eight stone tables, seven of them faceless and fully 'canoed' - that is, their organs had been eviscerated and preserved in lyrium to provide portable power (Danarius had often made him assist) their faces folded down like masks, exposing the rigid grin of the skulls, which had been opened with a circular saw. If any of the slaves had magical ability, their skulls could be used to make Oculara – Hadriana had refined the technique. Only one slave still had a face – an elderly Elven man whose rags showed the remains of a kitchen apron. At the sight of him, tortured and bled white to provide the power to summon demons, agony still locked on the dead face, Lambert had gone almost as pale. He looked as if he were going to be sick. Unwanted memory twisted and squirmed in Fenris' consciousness, demanding presence. He smelled blood, pain, sex – was seeing Danarius' latest blood meal, a teenage prostitute he was using to power the spells to recapture Fenris. Fenris had failed to kill Danarius, but he had rescued the wounded prisoner and – even when he realised the young man was an apostate – had not turned him in to the Gallows. Lambert had cleaned Danarius' estate of valuables and used the money to buy into the Deep Roads expedition. Fenris wondered if the memory would prevent Lambert going any further into the Holding Caves; he asked, "Are you alright?"
Lambert rallied and said, "I'm fine. But – no prisoners, right?"
"Of course not. Win or die. If we are overwhelmed, I'll end you then myself." Fenris could not help adding, "At least that way we know it'll be done right."
Lambert smiled a graveyard smile. "No need. I've treated men with Blight sickness. I know the cuts to make." A surprising admission from out of the darkness.
Varric was exasperated. "Well, aren't you two rays of sunshine? Have you been talking to His Royal Shininess again?"
Fenris almost laughed. Varric's one-sided dislike of Sebastian was well-known. As if a former slave would need guidance to know death was preferable! He said mildly, "The Templars praise the Sword of Mercy but Brother Sebastian believes suicide is a sin in the eyes of the Maker. Maybe so – but I would rather be a sinner than a slave."
"And on that cheery note..." Varric sighed. The four of them set off down a stone corridor where the rock itself seemed to sweat the stench of blood and pain and ineradicable fear. Along one wall were bars, but there was no one within. Towering statues of solid bronze – of the magisters who had once breached the Black City – seemed to hold up the ceiling. The shut-in, thick, breathless dark was an iridescent black that approached purple, lustrous as oil.
An imperceptible tremor went through Fenris' hand as he reached for the heavy bronze handle. A moment later the steel tendrils of his will stilled the movement. With a sharp, decisive gesture, he pushed hard as he could. A yawning, impenetrable blackness loomed before him. He strode into the void and its jaws closed around him...
...it was dark in Danarius' dungeon, a darkness that crawled over him, flowed through him, so that he did not know where he ended and the darkness began. And suddenly he realised that his pain and fear meant nothing – that neither could affect the world around him – that the darkness and the paralysis and the silence made him unreal. For the first time since receiving the brands, he began to phase, felt himself leeching out of existence like an inane dream. After that the whisper of cloth that skittered like a thousand insects – the swish of robes as Danarius approached – did not matter. Nothing that happened to him mattered at all...
"Light." That was Lambert, casting. The touch of mana crawled along the lyrium brands, but Fenris welcomed the pain - it meant he was still present, still alive. A pure glow formed a shining nimbus around Lambert and his companions, whose spikes reached unearthly fingers into the darkest corners, danced around them like petals of light. It was like walking inside a huge, ephemeral version of the crystal chandelier in the drawing room at the Amell estate. Lambert was smiling – totally delighted. "Anders has been trying to teach me for ages – I thought I'd finally gotten it right."
"Sparky," Varric said softly, in a way he had never said the nickname before.
The blackness divided itself into blocks of grey – the steps, the long table, the empty chairs regular as gravestones. A tapestry along one wall depicted a scene from Tevinter's ancient past – the magisters holding starring roles, of course – its scarlet and gold colours faded with age.
The deeper they descended, the more the stone itself exuded a stench of underground water and ancient fear. Fenris' elven hearing picked up a strange sound – not human but a series of sub-audible rustles and whispers – as though the rock itself were trying to warn him of something. Narrow steps led down into the unknown. Fenris' instinctive reaction was to count...
Danarius always stopped at fifty...
Finally, the steps opened out into a low, curved tunnel. It opened like a clam shell into vast space. Inside were no guards, no slavers with whips. There was just a young Elven girl whose face wore an odd frozen stillness, like a mask or a shield.
"Are you hurt? Did they touch you?"
"They've been killing everyone! They cut papa, bled him... Master Hadriana...she said she needed power, that someone was coming to kill her. We tried to be good! We did everything we were told! She loved papa's soup. I don't understand..."
"Is Hadriana still here?"
"I... think so. She said they were to prepare for battle. I think she's very frightened!"
"She has every reason to be."
"Please, don't hurt her! She'll be so angry if you hurt her!"
"This has been terrible for you," Lambert said softly, "What is your name?"
"O...Orana, my lord. Everything was fine until today!"
"It wasn't," Fenris told her, his voice so raw it sounded bloody, "You just didn't know any better."
"Are you my master now?" she asked Lambert.
"No!" Lambert was horrified.
"But...I can cook. I can clean! What else will I do?"
"If you go to Kirkwall, I can help you." Both Tallis and Lambert had spoken.
"Yes! Oh, praise the Maker! Thank you!"
"I didn't realise you were in the market for a slave," Fenris hissed furiously.
Lambert flinched as if struck. "I gave her a job, Fenris. Or is it that you think I'll do what my grandfather did, to get an heir? If I ever try it, feel free to unman me."
"No - I know you are not that sort," Fenris said sheepishly, "I apologize."
"There are other paths," Tallis told Orana, "They do not have to lead to the same destination. He offers you a world where you will only ever be a servant – never meaning anything, never amounting to anything. You could join me – it wouldn't have to be as a fighter. Not every Qunari is a soldier, you know."
Orana blinked – staring at this glittering, alien woman - an Elf, like her, but armed and armoured. A woman who had dared to speak against a human and not been cut down. Fenris knew in that moment that they had lost her. However kind a person, Lambert could only ever be an employer; they met each other across a vast gulf, and Fenris wondered if he himself had been foolish to choose Lambert over the Arishok. He had told Tallis that no one would take his self from him again – but right then his self did not look like anything worth saving.
"That's your choice," Lambert told Orana quietly, "I'll always respect choice."
"Wait at the cave entrance," Tallis told her new convert, "I will be back for you."
What waited in the next room was more than human evil, for demons had gathered in the vast space of the cavern. The splinters of Lambert's light – the spear-tips of ethereal armies – did not even touch its edges. Hopelessness seeped from the stone itself in a damp, sibilant whisper. The darkness gathered around them like congealing droplets of black smoke, and it occurred to Fenris that Lambert's belief in beauty – in the illumination of light, of knowledge – was laughably naïve. However far or fast light travelled the darkness was faster still - already there, at the edges of the universe – beaten back but never defeated. Fenris shook the thoughts away like a mabari shedding water, irritated by the flight of fancy. Hadriana stood at the centre of her demons – her dark robes rooted in deep shadow. One hand clutched a needle-like, blood-strained dagger. She could barely be seen – a shape of darkness against night.
"You have made a terrible mistake in coming here, slave."
…The silver insect loomed before him, its human face recreated, blooming over and over as if in repeated lightning flashes in his mind: the mirror eyes concentrating, the slash of a mouth frowning in fastidious disgust at the first splash of blood on his robes...
Fenris knew what was coming before his opponent did. The familiar dark window opened at the base of his mind. He let himself go, travelling backward - thoughts, hopes, dreams unravelling; his own self thinned, dissolved into darkness like droplets of smoke. All that remained was a small, hard nugget: the will to move...
Phasing meant her blood magic couldn't touch him, but his companions had no such defence. Lambert protected them with the Litany. The magic in the cavern added to his own and allowed him to create a ghostly instrument shaped by his will. It did not look quite like a lute – it was longer, slimmer, charged with runes of electricity. They gave it a wailing twang that harmonized perfectly with his countertenor, giving his words an eerie, luminous power:
"...and I whisper, if you want him, then you're gonna have to fight me..."
The demons surrounded him. Their skin was shrivelled and grey, blending with the impression of dark, loose robes like animated blotches of ink. Like a drop of dye in water, the darkness spread and spread, wringing colour from above and below, altering everything it touched. The demons moved effortlessly, weightless phantoms gliding across the stone. Fenris could smell them – dried leaves and earth and mould – see hints of blackened teeth as they circled Lambert. Their mouths were wet, twisting rubber rings; like gaping, shapeless holes. They were excited, hungry – but as the Litany of Adralla concluded their skin became translucent, like slivers of dried meat against the light. They watched Lambert with mad unblinking eyes – gleaming spheres that seemed to glow intermittently, like lumps of burning coal catching a reanimating breath.
One demon alone shook off the spell and tried to charge Lambert. Fenris took it in an open field tackle – going in low, falling and rolling over. He was up in a fighting stance, seeing the demon's face – not grinning, but with its mouth spread in what appeared like a grin, ready to feed. The demon had no heart for Fenris to remove, but Lethendralis was bared, and a moment was all he needed. The demon slashed him, its talonlike hands parting the skin over his ribs like paper, but he beheaded it and it faded into the darkness like smoke.
Tallis was a shadow, picking off the demons who circled Lambert – they were so entranced they died unconcerned, fading into darkness like droplets of smoke, no longer cohered by a living will. Varric and Bianca were a good team. Since the mission in the Fade last season, Varric had worked tirelessly to improve the weapon. Bianca now had a double magazine and double bolt-grooves, shooting two bolts simultaneously. These were vials of Dworkin the Mad's attempt to create gaatlok – a mixture of Drakestone, charcoal and Sela Petrae. He picked off Hadriana's remaining human guardsmen with contemptuous ease.
Fenris leapt for Hadriana as an animal might, crystalline eyes lit by compressed energy void of feeling. Fear trembled around the mage – Fenris felt her change tactic:
"Ignis!"
Fenris shuddered, his body suddenly a mass of pain. Danarius had always been able to punish him the way some Seekers could punish Templars – by igniting the lyrium in veins or skin – and Hadriana had learned the technique. A red fog danced before his eyes; he fought to focus. He was dying – no, worse than that, for this mortal agony could be prolonged indefinitely. In the midst of the maelstrom of torment, Fenris sensed a trickle of delight – a sickly-purple smear of glee in the aura of Hadriana's magic – hysterical with delight and relief that a man stronger than herself was down after all.
"And after you - him," she said, jerking her chin in Lambert's direction.
Fenris felt the ripple of shock shudder through her when he met her eyes, his face a soulless battle-mask.
"No."
Sweat spread on Fenris' tunic between his shoulder-blades; his tendons jerked as if ready to snap. He moved like a marionette controlled by a child, the wire mesh of his will overriding the messages scrambled by ravaged nerves. But he moved - took a step towards his target.
Hadriana's mouth dropped open, but her slitted eyes maintained their concentration, remaining fixed on Fenris even as he raised Lethandralis. Fenris struggled under the weight of a monstrous dark ocean. His arms trembled uncontrollably, like those of a plague victim – still, he raised his sword, grasped in white-knuckled hands like a lifeline.
"Stop! You do not want me dead." In an instant the spell vanished and the relief was almost an agony in itself.
Fenris managed a smile that felt like it would crack his face. "There is only one person I want dead more."
"I have information, elf, and I will trade it in return for my life."
"The location of Danarius? What good will that do me? I would rather he lose his pet pupil."
"You have a sister. She is alive."
Fenris stopped, pole-axed, and hesitated like a beast at bay. Like a predator, she pursued:
"You wish to reclaim your life? Let me go, and I will tell you where she is."
Lambert, Varric and Tallis joined him, their battles won.
"How can we know she's telling the truth?" Lambert asked him. He was avoiding looking at Hadriana as if she were beneath their notice – the same contempt the slavers had shown Fenris. Fenris didn't miss that, nor the silent support.
Hadriana was not used to being ignored. "I know Fenris, and I know what he's searching for. If he wants me to betray Damarius, he'll have to pay for it."
"Really?" Fenris asked her, with something that looked like but wasn't a smile, "Do you imagine you'll last longer under torture than your victims?"
"You would not dare! For an Elven animal to lay hands on a Master is..." Her voice trailed off as she realised the truth of her predicament – and Fenris felt a dark pleasure at the realisation he had mocked that gloating assurance to silence.
"Tell me, and I will let you go."
"Her name is Varania. She is in Qarinus serving a Magister by the name of Ahriman."
"A servant?" Fenris asked, with desperate hope, "Not a slave?"
"She is not a slave."
"I believe you."
The Blue Wraith reached inside her body and removed her heart – clinically, quickly, painlessly, without hesitation and without mercy. He rose and turned away, not quite daring to look at Lambert. Lambert could be absurdly merciful, and he did not want to see the judgement for his broken promise.
"That's - something," Lambert said quietly, "To show mercy like that. We couldn't have let her live, but I am glad you are not a torturer."
Lambert's words shamed him. Because...he had been. Danarius' assassin, bodyguard, sex slave – and sometimes torturer. And – when they had been rival mages – he had enjoyed it. It had been the only time a slave could pay back a mage. Worse still, when Lambert had offered the services of a courtesan, free of charge – the only reward he could think of for Fenris having saved him from Danarius – a reptile part of him had wanted to accept. Because for a slave to take a mage - roughly, contemptuously - would have been vengeance, power, proof of freedom. He had refused, disgusted with himself, and Lambert had paid him back in other ways – by teaching him to read and by persuading Varric to hire him on the Deep Roads expedition. But not for anything would Fenris tell Lambert what he had nearly done.
"You need healing," Lambert said.
"No, I do not want magical healing!" Fenris shouted, furious. The very thought of mana touching the brands made his skin crawl. The blue light flickered around him like crackles of lightning before a storm. That had been part of his training too. Danarius had realized his slave would not be able to control the markings as a mage would – through mana or Blood Magic – so he had taught Fenris to channel emotion. The brands ran on anger – pain, anger, vengeance – he could do it deliberately, but it sometimes happened without volition. And that prospect haunted him. Because Danarius had controlled the pain by maintaining the brands – and now, four years after his escape, they had started to become less controllable. It was possible that, a few years from now, he would be nothing more than a tormented ghost, fading in and out of existence until some Templar ended him.
"Okay," Lambert said, not pushing it, "We'll go back to Kirkwall and then we'll make a plan for finding your sister."
"This could be a trap! Danarius could have sent Hadriana here to tell me about this 'sister.' Even if he didn't, trying to find her would be suicide!" He phased involuntarily, coming to stand with his fists an inch from Lambert's chest. He growled, while around him the air writhed in anguish. "But all that matters is I finally got to crush this bitch's heart. May she rot – and all the other mages with her..."
Lambert did not back off – he was regrettably trusting, which was how he had ended up in a relationship with an abomination – said only, "This doesn't mean we shouldn't look for your sister."
Varric came to stand beside Lambert in a way that subtly revealed his support – he would back Lambert against this lyrium-branded mage-hater (oddly, Fenris felt a moment of relief that at least someone would look after Lambert). "Broody - maybe now isn't a good time - but when you have calmed down let me tell you about my cousin, Thorold, who lives with Magister Maevaris Tilani in Qarinus. I will make enquiries, and we can make a plan."
"Even if I found my sister, who knows what the magisters have done to her. What has magic touched that it doesn't spoil?"
That finally got through to Lambert. The planes of his face shifted and hardened. Five years older in an instant, he said coldly, "I envy you. I would give everything I have for even a chance to find Bethany. No matter what the darkspawn had done to her, no matter what horrors had changed her, she would always be my sister."
The sorrow on his face wrung Fenris' heart. He did not have words to explain that what he feared was not that – that when a person escapes slavery they will do anything to keep their freedom. Varania would – and so might he. Just as he had done anything and everything Danarius had ordered. A man dying of thirst did not ask the cost of a drink. He would never hurt Varania – intentionally. But the brands had defiled his flesh and soul and if he tried to find Varania – disturb her life in Qarinus – he could only hurt her.
Not having words to explain – not used to asking for understanding – he said only, "I need to leave."
He spent most of the way back in his phased state – returning to the world only in patches, just long enough to make sure Lambert and Varric were safe. He could no longer protect Tallis or Orana – Tallis led her new convert to the Arishok's compound and he knew when they next met it would be as opponents. Varric returned – predictably enough – to The Hanged Man – and Lambert returned (also predictably) to Darktown – to see his cat and his abomination lover. Fenris watched, unseen, until he entered the clinic, and then – satisfied the only danger Lambert faced was self-inflicted (he had chosen to feast with panthers) returned to his stolen mansion.
He stood before the bleak, grey-walled structure of stone; shut its gates behind him. Without being aware of it, he had phased, bled into the Fade until all that was left was willpower. It carried him onward like a ghost.
In the two years he had lived here, Fenris had never touched Danarius' bedchamber, or the guest rooms, kitchen, or vestibule. He had moved the wines from the cellar and stacked them in the living room and dragged second-hand furniture around the fireplace. This was where he slept, ate takeaway food, and – rarely – entertained visitors. These had only ever been Lambert, Brother Sebastian, and the new Guard Captain, Donnic Hendyr. Right now he ignored everything but the cabinet in one corner, which he opened with shaking hands. He found the bottle marked 'Apostate's Friend' in Lambert's stylish, flowery handwriting.
A year ago, Lambert had shyly explained that he and Anders had been working in the clinic on a potion that would help apostates elude the Chantry...
…"Well, I take magebane – it feels like a kick in the privates but it completely drains my mana – so Templars can't sense me. But I got to wondering – suppose they interrogate me, like they did old Elias the other week. They force-feed us lyrium, you see, so our mana will regenerate faster than you can say 'apostate.' Anyway, I got to thinking – what if there were a way to prevent the body reacting to lyrium? Anders thought it a brilliant idea - we got to working in his clinic, after hours, and we came up with this!"
"And what do I want with a bootleg potion named 'Apostate's Friend'?" Fenris asked aridly.
"Well...please don't be offended, but...that last fight, with poor Olivia – I couldn't help but notice your pain."
"I'm not in pain," Fenris told him frigidly.
"You hide it well – and you are bloody brave – but I'd be a poor healer if I didn't notice. So, I was thinking – a potion that stops the body reacting to lyrium...it ought to dull the pain of the brands. I've written the ingredients down, and I know you can easily get them from your contacts – you won't have to ask me, or go to the clinic"...
Fenris had ignored him as he set the bottle down - too furious Lambert had noticed his weakness and too disgusted to take a potion labelled 'Apostate's Friend' - but he reached for it now. On normal days he preferred to manage the pain by stalking through his mansion, practicing sword-forms, or – best of all – by killing slavers. But on days like this, when he couldn't stand upright or bear the touch of clothes or even breathe too deeply, it was the lesser of two evils. He swallowed the whole vial and - as the pain eased to a manageable level – the only thing that seemed remotely surprising was his own ingratitude. Nor had he thanked Lambert for facing Hadriana with him – even though he had been terrified. Seeing Lambert's face as they discovered the dead victims, he had watched him relive his own experience with the white, blind look of an animal in a trap. But he had not run.
Fenris relived the last words he had said to Lambert and knew he had to apologize.
He would not, of course, go to the abomination's clinic, but sometime after the two had locked lips Lambert was bound to return to Hightown to see his mother. The thought of appearing in the 'good' area of Hightown made Fenris squirm uncomfortably; he suddenly realised his shirt (the red shirt with the Hawke insignia he had worn at Chateau Haine) was in rags – wyverns and slavers and demons had shredded it – and he was dripping blood all over the floor. He had not noticed the pain of the cut across his ribs – when the whole body is on fire how much can it feel a wound? - but it needed attention. He tore off the rest of the shirt, fetched needle and thread from the cabinet, and set to work. On a whim, when he had finished, he picked up an undamaged piece of the shirt and tied it around his wrist. Tallis had been scornful of his decision to remain Hawke's unofficial bodyguard instead of joining the Arishok but he would own it.
…A life's a small thing; any force strong enough can claim it at any time. A man's choice is his own...
He fetched the last of the water he had drawn from the Hightown river and used it to wash down body and armour before replacing the metal exoskeleton that had been Danarius' gift – other armour did not move with him as he phased. Satisfied he was back to his usual self, he moved to the door.
A knocking on the other side surprised him.
"Fenris, are you in there?" It was Lambert.
Fenris unbolted the door.
"You could not have seen both Anders" (he left off calling him the abomination – offending Lambert was not a good way to begin apologizing) "and your mother in this time?"
"Anders is at a meeting held by the Resolutionists – something about a Templar named Ser Alrik – he'll tell me when he's ready. Mother and Gamlen are out shopping. Did I tell you I recently tracked down a long-lost daughter of his named Charade? Uncle wants to smarten up before seeing her. I would have come in any case – I was worried about you, and I didn't think you'd have eaten since Château Haine. The ham of despair wasn't very filling anyway..."
It was, as always, quite hard to get a word in edgeways when Lambert was in full flow. Fenris merely stepped aside and led them to his impromptu living room.
"So - I brought us dinner..." Lambert was carrying two parcels. He opened the larger of the two with a flourish. "Ta da! I stopped by the Alienage this afternoon and they were selling chicken..."
Fenris nearly snorted with laughter at the idea Lambert had been taken in by Alienage 'chicken.' Seeing his expression, Lambert said seriously, "Oh - I know what you're thinking – but the Elves wouldn't cook and eat cats – they like them."
"Indeed," Fenris said, straight-faced, "Because the cats are so good at hunting...chickens..."
Lambert busied himself cooking the mystery meat over the fire in Fenris' living room. "You know," he mused thoughtfully, "This is very similar to a meat Father could always get us when we were hungry. He told me it was a special type of deer known only in the Free Marches – a deer the size of a mouse..."
"Mouse-deer," Fenris agreed, dead-pan, "I know it well. It sustained me when I was starving, on the run from Tevinter. Well, it is always best washed down with wine..." He produced a bottle from Danarius collection, "Last bottle of the Agreggio. I've been saving it for a special occasion. Astia valla femundis!"
Lambert smiled and clinked his glass, and the two enjoyed mouse-deer washed down with an obscenely expensive red. The wine mixed with the Apostate's Friend so that Fenris felt relaxed and free of pain for the first time he could remember.
"I've been thinking about what happened with Hadriana," he said quietly, "I took out my anger on you, undeservedly so. I was...not myself. I'm sorry." Fenris had heard other people say that – of some outburst of temper or period of whoring or gambling - and it seemed to suit the moment. In truth, "myself" was a frighteningly fragile conceit. His first memory was of receiving the brands and his life experience consisted of the five years serving Danarius, then the three years on the run – living like an animal powered by rage – and the sixteen months he had known Lambert. He did not know who 'myself' was – only who he wanted to be.
"Fenris," Lambert said, "You were angry – who wouldn't be – but you did not take anything out on me. You didn't say "may she rot – and all other mages with her"; you said, "and all the other mages" so it was obvious you were talking about your torturers. And "what does magic touch that it doesn't spoil?" was referring to your brands. You were worried you might hurt Varania. You have every right to refuse magical healing – or to be touched in any way. You've no need to apologize."
"You are generous."
"That isn't generosity," Lambert said, troubled, "That is...basic decency."
What Fenris could not understand, he chose to ignore. But Lambert deserved something.
"You have never asked how I escaped Danarius."
"No. I... I never ask you because...not because I don't care. It's just I don't think anyone has the right to ask you about the past. There's nothing to be said about it unless it's you that says it. And you have always avoided talking about it."
"Not on special occasions. Let's see. You've heard of Seheron? The Imperium and the Qunari have fought over the island for centuries now. I was there with Danarius during a Qunari attack. I managed to get him to a ship...but there was no room for a slave. I was left behind. I barely got out of the city alive. There are rebels in the Seheron jungles called Fog Warriors. They found me and took me in, nursed me back to health. I stayed with them for a few months. Until Danarius finally came for me."
Fenris was back there – the jungle corroding, chilling, sucking, drenching, polluting, dissolving – coming at him with green mould and rolling mists and ceaseless downpour, tripping him with uncountable roots and vines, poisoning him with green insects and noxious bugs and deceptive tree bark, turning the sun from his bones...plucking each cell apart and remaking him from the ground up in hollow harmony with the rain.
"Were you with these Fog Warriors willingly?"
"I'd grown fond of the rebels. They bowed to no master and fought for their freedom. It was...beyond my experience."
They had remade him just as Danarius had remade him, but while Danarius had made a killing machine these rebels had offered him friendship and trust and family.
"When Danarius came, they refused to let him take me." Fenris stopped, took a long swig of the bottle before he could continue. He looked away from Lambert, lost in memories, in grief, in regret. "I knew them for only a few months and in that time I felt as if I truly lived. They were bold. Strong. Free with their affections. I was in awe of them and owed them everything."
Fenris' stolen mansion was quiet as an open grave.
"Danarius ordered me to kill them. So I did. I killed them all."
Lambert was silent. Fenris forced himself to meet his eyes – if Lambert was disgusted, he had earned it. There was a look on Lambert's face he couldn't begin to interpret – but it wasn't disgust. Or blame. Finally, Lambert asked him,
"Did Danarius use blood magic?"
"He didn't have to. My first memory is of receiving the markings – the agony wiped away everything else. A slave does not dream of freedom or wonder at possibilities. You think only of your master's desires and what the next hour will bring. I was trained to fight and conditioned to obey. It did not occur to me that I could refuse. My master had returned and this...this fantasy life was over."
"What you did is not surprising - I would have done the same, in the same circumstances. Anyone would. What surprises me is that you escaped at all. How?"
"Once it was done, I looked down at their bodies. I felt...I couldn't...I ran. And never looked back. The rebels had wounded Danarius. The soldiers he brought attempted to capture me – unsuccessfully. It was weeks before Danarius was able to mount the hunt in earnest. By then, I was already gone. I had no way of knowing if I could truly escape from Danarius. I didn't even know what that meant. I simply had to get away. I stowed aboard a ship to the mainland and moved south...chased by my former master every step of the way."
He decided to skip details of the route. The smuggler's vessel had stopped at Brynnlaw, and from there he had fled through the night, skirting Arlathan Forest (the ancient elven home had a different climate to Seheron – was a lush forest rather than a jungle – and the scattered Dalish tribes had run him off because he was marked by Tevinter) then following the Hundred Pillars mountains, between Tevinter and Antiva. He had used his ability to phase to rip the hearts from the other animals – killed and ate and slept when he had to – his survival from moment to moment a tenuous uncertainty. The first city he had stopped in was Starkhaven on the Minanter River.
He decided to say nothing of stealing food when he was starving, of the nights spent shivering in ditches. As a penniless veteran of the Fifth Blight, Lambert had been reduced to selling his flesh at the Blooming Rose but Fenris couldn't even do that – too afraid a client would see the brands and report him. Still, Starkhaven had one blessing that seemed a miracle - the mages (and many of them were Tevene) were locked up, prevented from causing harm. Until a magister named Decimus burned the Circle Tower to the ground. That had been Fenris' signal to move on. He headed south again, putting as much distance between himself and Danarius as possible. He had chosen Kirkwall because of Knight Commander Meredith. She stood between ordinary folk and the howling darkness of mage predation and did not falter. He had spent a year working for an Elven smuggler named Athenril, before forging his identity as an assassin who specialized in maleficarum and slavers. When he learned Danarius had followed him to Kirkwall he decided to stop running. Contacts such as Anzo helped him set up the attack; Danarius had known it was coming ("predictable as always, my little wolf") and bled one of his young male prostitutes to fuel his magic. Fenris had failed to kill Danarius but succeeded in rescuing Lambert. At the time, he had considered it a poor bargain (another shameful misjudgement he was at no pains to reveal).
"Brave man."
"I have never spoken about what happened to anyone. I have never wanted to. Perhaps this is what it means to have a friend?"
"Yes – we are friends. I have something for you."
Lambert pulled a plain book out of the other package and handed it to him carefully. He smiled shyly, "Don't tell the Chantry – it's one of the Dissonant Verses. The book is by Shartan, the Elf who helped Andraste free the slaves."
Lambert had taught him to read – shared the books of his childhood – this was a step up, but Fenris was ready for the challenge.
"I've always wanted to learn more of Shartan. Perhaps this is my chance."
The knowledge that this was how Lambert saw him - as a hero fighting slavery as Andraste's disciple had done centuries before – struck Fenris as both wonderful and shameful. He was unworthy of this book just as he had been unworthy of fighting with the Fog Warriors.
"Lambert," he said suddenly, the words entirely unplanned, "Have you forgotten I tried to sell you to a demon in order to gain the power to fight Danarius?"
Lambert blinked. "Oh – you mean the Fade? You didn't. You sold yourself to the demon – stupid, I agree, but it's not the same thing – and asked me to fight with you, to save Anders from possession by killing Justice and to do for Feynriel what Keeper Marethari had asked. I chose to be your opponent and I knew Tranquillity would be the price of failure – we were free men on opposite sides in war. You would not have sold me – or treated anyone as collateral damage – even to save yourself from a fate worse than death." His voice went very low and soft and he was clearly thinking of Anders' meeting with the Resolutionists. "As for the Fog Warriors, you are not unworthy of joining them – should you choose to, someday. They chose to fight Danarius and they knew he would have ways of compelling you to be his weapon. They did it anyway so you could be here, now – a free man planning to kill Danarius and free slaves."
Fenris decided, right then, what he would do five years from now, if the future the demon had shown him came to pass. The mages were going to vote for freedom from the Chantry in the Conclave of Dragon Age 9:37 – encouraged by Grand Enchanter Fiona and given hope by Thomas Amell – and Knight Commander Meredith would refuse to accept it. She would lead the Templars in the Rite of Annulment in order to protect the people of Kirkwall. Lambert was going to die defending the mages in hopeless battle because he believed it the right thing to do.
But he would not die because Fenris would protect him, use his abilities to turn the tide of the battle – even though he knew the mages would use their freedom to make the whole world into Tevinter. When that happened (it would only take a few years) he knew now Lambert would join him, because - unlike Anders - he put what was right above 'my fellow mages right or wrong.' They would likely both die fighting magisters. Lambert was naïve to think mages and non-mages could co-exist. Peace in this world ended at birth and only returned at death. What mattered to Fenris was neither he nor Lambert would betray the other.
In lieu of saying all that he said instead, "On Friday evenings I host weekly games of Diamondback. It's usually me, Brother Sebastian Vael and Guard Captain Donnic Hendyr. Do you wish to be our fourth player?"
The idea that he - an ex-slave with lyrium markings and amnesia – could say such a thing stuck Fenris as both absurd and wonderful. He had met Donnic after he had saved the guardsman from a set-up by his own Captain, Jeven, who had made him a sacrificial delivery for goods into the Coterie's hands (Jeven had since retired in disgrace). He had been hired by Brother Sebastian to avenge the murder of his family by The Flint Company. When working together, Donnic had taught them both to play Diamondback and the visits had grown from that. Fenris had no idea how to be a host – he had copied Lambert (who had always managed to make Gamlen's hovel seem inviting) and tried to fake being a functioning member of a free society.
Sharing this – his first fumbling attempt to be a free man – was the only thing he had to give Lambert. He was gratified to see his face light up.
"Count me in."
AN: my descriptions owe something to "Poem in October" by Dylan Thomas and Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb. My version of the Litany of Adralla is Laura Marling: Night Terror. Malcolm Hawke serving his family 'mouse-deer' is from King Rat, by James Clavell.