Chapter Twenty-Three: Descent

'Most men can withstand adversity. If you want to test a man's character, give him power' (Abraham Lincoln).

Trigger warnings: this is the 'Dissent' questline from the POV of Alrik's victims so there are scenes of rape and torture and references to underage abuse.

The Chantry, Kirkwall, Dragon Age 9:33, Drakonis.

Lambert sat facing his accusers: Grand Cleric Elthina, Knight Commander Meredith and Knight Captain Cullen. They were seated in a rough semi-circle of mahogany high chairs between the altar rail and the first pew. An orange brazier burned with occasional pops and snaps, tinting the stone carvings with petals of light. Andraste to the right of the altar released a pterodactyl of shadow. The scent was a complex and vivid eruption of lilies from the vase at Our Lady's feet – it made him nauseous. Since Leandra's death, he could not bear lilies. These formed a tapestry with scents of incense and chilled stone.

The early morning light was steel-grey. Spirals of rain made snail-trails down the stained-glass windows. These depicted Andraste praying for sinners in a forest glade: her red robes were a shimmering flame, the leaves flakes of verdant luminosity. The rain dissolved them into thick green light; the world outside half-drowned, as through seen through a heavy, soup-like haze.

...here lies the abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew...

Grand Cleric Elthina's letter had been one of several on Lambert's desk this morning – Lord Amell was a busy man – and he had not even bothered to tell Bodahn which missive he was pursuing. He had assumed Elthina wished to discuss the orphanage he was funding, and that he would be home by mid-morning. Stupid, stupid.

He was beginning to get an inkling of why they had summoned him. That letter he had written to his cousin in the Ferelden Circle, asking whether it was ever possible to free a possessed mage, had been spectacularly stupid. Knight Commander Rylock had walked naked through fire to cure Thomas of Tranquillity, but that did not mean she did not read the letters of all her Circle mages. She was not an ally. Lambert ought to have known that, but he had not been thinking straight since his mother's death six months ago. Anders' warnings about the Gallows dungeon - about Ser Alrik and his proposed Tranquil Solution – had taken second place to Lambert's grief. Even when they had put wanted posters of Lambert's lover all over Kirkwall he had assumed it would blow over. Knight Commander Rylock had written to Meredith (the two were friends, and possibly more than that) claiming Anders was an abomination. Meredith had declared anyone found to have helped an abomination would share the same fate. The inkling of what that fate might be began life in Lambert's knees, but soon scurried up his legs, groin, stomach and ribs like a cluster of spiders.

Lambert was gazing at the scar on Cullen's chin and wondering where he got it. He was studying Elthina's calm and outwardly pleasant demeanor and wondering if she was simply too trusting – so trusting she had never checked the horror stories of the Gallows dungeon – or whether she was up to her neck in it like the rest. He was looking at Meredith and wondering at what point childhood grief for her sister – who had been a mage and become an abomination – had transformed into the need to break all mages, to 'save them from themselves.' He was watching them and deciding that, when they brought him to the dungeon, he would kill Alrik no matter what.

There was a hidden trapdoor behind the confessional that led to a tunnel under the mountain on which Hightown was built. The tunnel led down to Darktown and then curved left, underneath the Waking Sea and into the Gallows dungeon. Lambert shuddered. He had thought they would take him to the Gallows above ground, to the Docks and then across the water. Had hoped he would be able to attract the attention of passersby – Lord Amell being taken by Templars, treated like a common criminal – had hoped Fenris' connection with Athenril or Varric's connection with the Coterie would be enough to save him. Had hoped Gamlen or Bodahn would hear of it, and rally friends of his mother. Perhaps get word to Duke Prosper, who had offered Lambert his protection. Even Seeker Leliana herself.

They would never even know where he had gone until it was far, far too late. How long did the human body last under torture? How long until nothing of him remained?

The tunnel was cold, and the lamp was afflicted with a ghoulish flicker like a promise that it might go out at any moment, plunging him into blackness. Cold seemed to sneak into him from the ground despite his warm boots. The tunnel curved a bit. Every now and again they passed a door embedded in the stone, and Lambert wondered just how far the honeycomb of the old Tevinter ruins snaked. He paused by one, wondering what lay beyond it. Cullen grabbed his arm so he would lose his balance if he didn't climb after the Templar into the tunnel opening below the Gallows. Lambert was not – yet – wearing chains, but that made little difference. The way Meredith had said 'guest' made him shiver. It stirred indefinable dark things in the corners of his mind. His lungs yearned for fresh air as eagerly as he craved sunlight.

Mysterious sounds crowded in on him. It was as if the slabs of stone and rough timbers were trying to speak. His ears strained at whispers and sighs and mumblings he could neither understand nor locate. A thick cell door squealed open and the torchlight exposed loathsome insects darting for cover. They pushed him inside and the door slammed shut, leaving him in blackness. He followed their departure by watching the sway of torchlight wane from his door. Waves retreated like that, carrying the sparkle of sunlight within them, back to the sea's cold darkness. In Lothering the wheat in the fields had bent under the wind in similar change. One day, his father had made a picnic for his family. Warm food, warm smiles, a meadow in the sun.

"I'm proud of you, my boy." Malcolm Hawke reached out his hands, ready to scoop him up. Lambert's bare feet kissed the sun-warmed earth. He ran to his father.

High above Lambert, the Gallows was a beehive of people: apprentices, mages and the omnipresent Templars. The lower chambers contained the archives, kitchens, armories and the forge. The forge was a world of sweat and noise and fire. The smiths were Tranquil – the only people able to enchant Templar armour with lyrium. A seething landscape of molten metal, of clanking chains and pulleys, of pounding, oppressive heat. Great metal jugs spat and steamed as their contents were poured. Glowing blue liquid slithered down trenches, flames dancing above.

Below the forge – below the Waking Sea itself – the deepest part of the Gallows was known as the Pit. A maze of tunnels wound through ruins that dated from the Tevinter Imperium. Some had collapsed, some had flooded, and at least one led into the sewers of Darktown. At the heart of the Pit lay the dungeons: hundreds upon hundreds of cells, on multiple levels. Outside the cells there was a cavern, sweltering and thick with shadow. The dark rock had folded into ledges and depressions, around which a wooden walkway had been built. Stone steps led down from a wide exit along one wall. Heavy grills of black iron marked the entrances to other prison chambers.

Lambert's eyes would not focus. There was a great weight anchored to his body, and even the thought of lifting an arm seemed an impossible dream. Keeping his thoughts together was like trying to catch live eels. He sagged against one wall, chewing on a knuckle until he remembered the danger of dirt-creatures in this place. Hysteria tickled the edges of his thoughts: a few more hours and Alrik would open him like a bloody purse – infection would be the least of his worries. He did not know exactly how much time had passed. Time in the Pit was inchoate; camphorous. There were no days, no nights, no seasons; it was the time of the grave.

Yet he could guess from the slow trickle of mana regenerating - like silver rain trailing beneath his skin – that he had been here at least five hours. He had – of course – taken magebane and the eclectic mix he called Apostate's Friend right before he was summoned to the Chantry. The Knight Commander knew about these (a Templar party had killed a group of fleeing mages and found these on the bodies) and knew it would take at least twelve hours to mark him as a mage – twenty-four to regenerate fully. Meredith had ordered Ser Alrik and Ser Karras to strip-search him and check for these bottles on his person (he had been hand-examined by the two, who had brought to bear a predictably excessive investigative zeal when it came to his genitals and anus). But they had gone no further, and from this he gathered Knight Commander Meredith had not received permission from the Grand Cleric. Until he was proved to be a mage – and thus legally unable to inherit the Amell estate – he was a member of the nobility and thus protected. Of course he'd been afraid Ser Karras might lose control and rape him anyway. That was an ordinary danger. His fear had been entwined with a fury that made him want to strike back.

Ser Alrik bred panic. Lambert had felt his blood go thin when he looked at the gelid eyes. He had wanted to hide, sickened by an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Danarius had made him a thing. Alrik had the same eyes. In his bloodless secret smile had been the certainty he would have Lambert's utter obedience. Understanding of what he was created a dread Lambert actually tasted, like acid at the back of his throat.

When Knight Captain Cullen came for him – several hours later – he was almost glad to see him. Waiting was no doubt much easier to bear than rape or torture, but it was harder than defiance. Solitude eroded courage. During those hours his spirit had quailed, resolution running out of him like sand from an hourglass. Once, he had panicked so badly that, afterward, he had found himself on the stone in the corner with his hands around his knees and no idea how he got there.

But the sight of Cullen was not what he had expected. He was braced for rage and violence; his mana revealed Cullen glowed with the cold blue light of lyrium - which meant Cullen would sense him glowing like a white sun. He wasn't ready for the distracted man – no older than Lambert's twenty years – who entered his cell with no swagger in his shoulders and no authority on his face.

Cullen looked like someone who had suffered an essential defeat.

Quietly, he said, "During the Blight, when you moved through the front lines, healing soldiers and Templars alike, I knew you had used magic on me. If it had just been ordinary healing, I'd have lost the use of my right arm. I told Knight Commander Rylock what you had done – what you were – and she asked Senior Enchanter Wynne and Sister Leliana to report on you. They told her you were just conventionally skilled, and that any reports of magic were from men half-delirious. Knight Commander Rylock did not say so, but I knew she believed my experiences at Kinloch Hold had left me an unreliable witness. She did not believe me." In Cullen's voice there was a trace of bitterness – at Lambert, who had used magic on him without his consent, and at Rylock, who had disbelieved him.

Lambert took the news of Leliana's support with gratitude. He had not realised she knew he was a mage - had felt vaguely guilty for having agreed to serve her as a bard without taking her into his confidence. Leliana had told him she was an ally of mages and today he had seen the proof.

"Yet when I met you at the Blooming Rose - the day you helped us save Keran – I sensed no magic on you and I began to doubt my own memory. I didn't know – then - how cunning you mages are. I didn't know about the potions you use to evade justice."

"Justice," Lambert snorted.

"I believed you were good: you helped us save Keran – at a time when you might have been forgiven for putting your feet up and sleeping for a week – and you taught me and my men the Litany of Adralla. But now I wonder: are you playing the long game? Because I allowed Keran to stay within the Order based on your word he was free of possession. If you were lying – if I have allowed recruits to become implanted with demons – if I have been using the Litany to detect abominations when all along it was a mage's trick..."

Fear chased after fury in Cullen's voice; the implications of that were so monstrous, so reminiscent of what he and so many others had suffered at Kinloch Hold. The lines of his face shifted and hardened, taking on the blank implacability of dragonbone; that fearsome, detached vigour Lambert had seen before in men trained to violence. The mixture of anguish and iron in his face, the fatal authority in his voice and movements, were those of a man who had been melted and beaten to iron without losing any of his vulnerabilities. He grabbed Lambert's shoulders, the fingers like teeth. Whiplike muscles in his wrists strained and bulged. His breath stank of acid.

Fear hit Lambert; fear for Keran. If Cullen believed Keran an abomination he would imprison the young knight down here – for the 'crime' of having been violated by Tarohne!

And I thought you only treated mages this unjustly...

"Keran is not an abomination."

"Prove it!" Cullen hissed, feverish with his distress, "Tell me where Anders is hiding! Then I will know you are good – despite being a mage. I'll even lie for you: I give you my word I'll swear to the Knight Commander you are a non-mage and fit to keep your title. Ser Alrik will have no excuse to harm you and I'll escort you to safety."

"A hypocrite as well as a torturer," Lambert said dryly.

"Enough! When you've suffered the way I did at Kinloch Hold I'll permit that imputation. Until then, you don't have the right. You are shielding a proven abomination – a monster who has killed before and will kill again – and you don't have the right!"

"Anders is no monster. For two years he has healed desperate refugees - our own countrymen – without expecting anything in return. Maker knows they never had such charity from the Chantry! He has brought more life to men than death. Can you say the same?"

Softly, Cullen said, "Templar Rolan was my friend. We trained together – fought darkspawn together – would have done anything for each other. And that...that thing murdered Rolan and twenty other Templars when Knight Commander Rylock sent them from Ferelden. After she read your letter to your cousin, she sent men to track the abomination down..."

Oh Anders! Oh love... Black sorrow pierced him. His own stupidity had put Anders at risk as well as himself! Oh love, I'm so sorry...

"They found the creature in a Darktown warehouse and it slaughtered them. Well, not slaughtered, exactly... That would imply the creature who did it was human. The damage didn't look like it had been done with any kind of blade. No: instead of being victims of human butchery, my friends resembled carcasses on which a predator had gorged. The bodies lay in a slop of blood and entrails and splintered bones."

Just for a second, the image struck Lambert so horribly he quailed. Oh Anders! Oh Maker... Visceral revulsion churned inside him, and he covered his mouth to keep from being sick. Anders, no!

Cullen continued, remorseless. "As for Rolan... In some ways he was in better condition; in some ways, worse. Both his arms were gone: one at the elbow, the other at the shoulder. His head had been ripped off; his whole face was gone. He was identifiable only by the portrait of his mother he carried in his pocket." Cullen's face collapsed in grief. He had loved Rolan, that much was clear - whether as friend or lover made no difference – and for an instant Lambert felt sorry for him.

I should have been with Anders, to prevent all this...

For a moment, Lambert doubted the rightness of his decision to protect Anders. He had never thought him capable of... oh, Anders had told him there was no-one in Kirkwall he would not kill to set mages free; often said – as though a mantra - that while mages were born Templars were made and so could be unmade. But these had just been words. However bad the words, Anders' actions had said otherwise: in the clinic all day, every day, battered and weary yet still treating patients with an exhausted smile; putting food out for cats when starving himself...

And yet... the doubt squirmed in Lambert's mind...Anders had said less and less about what the Resolutionists were doing. About what he was doing, at night when he pursued the cause of mage freedom...

"Sooner or later, everyone will have to pick a side. If you are not with me, you are against me" ...

But it wasn't fair to judge Anders for killing men who had come to kill him! Anders was pursuing peaceful methods – if he had been forced to kill to defend himself, that was manslaughter, not murder. Anders had never murdered anyone...

...so far as I know...

Lambert got a grip of himself. Betraying a man to torture was still evil.

Flatly, he said, "I wouldn't even let Ser Alrik have Quentin. Oh, I'll kill such men – as I'll help Fenris kill Danarius – but I do not enable rape and torture. If you do, I pity you."

Cullen blinked. Red rage paled. Eyes seemed to sink deep into his skull. "You pity...? You dare say that to me? One who knows you for what you are, who despises you?" His lined, strained face contorted into bunched fury. "It's all your fault. Mages. Destroyed me. My friends. You pretend to be so good, so kind. You led me on. You know you did. And I believed...almost believed you! What an unscrupulous liar you are. Your fault. All of it. Deserve whatever happens."

Slowly, clumsily, as though responding to ill-heard commands rather than the will of a functioning mind, Cullen backed away. He turned, sabatons scraping on stone; taking the torchlight with him, leaving Lambert in darkness.

After a while, the wall began to pain his back. Imperfectly fitted pieces of stone pressed against his spine, his shoulder-blades. Cold seemed to soak into him. Perhaps it would be wiser if he got up and began some exercises. But he didn't have the heart, nor the strength.

Anders, forgive me.

"Lord Amell."

Brother Sebastian stood at the door of Lambert's cell. His voice shook and he gripped the bars as though he had been the one who was locked up and Lambert was free. Dully, Lambert noticed there were lamplit tears on his cheeks. His eyes adjusted fractionally. Sebastian was dressed in green. Memories of green choked his thinking. He saw the Vhenadahl in summer. A laughing sea. The Planascene forest. The meadows around Chateau Haine.

"Lord Amell, you must help me." His appeal reached Lambert. Sebastian had fought beside him to try to save Leandra – and grieved with him when they failed. Biting back a groan, Lambert hefted onto his hands and knees. Then he got his feet under him and tottered upright.

Swaying and afraid he might pass out, he got to the jail door. That was the best he could do.

"Lord Amell – Grand Cleric Elthina has given Knight Commander Meredith permission to have Ser Alrik do anything he wants to you."

Sebastian's voice shook, not because he was angry but because he was fighting grief.

"Please," Sebastian whispered in supplication, "in the name of everything you respect – the name of everything you would find good about the Grand Cleric, if she had not fallen so far below herself – tell me where Anders is hiding." Sebastian's throat closed convulsively. "I care nothing for Anders' guilt. Although he is guilty – he did murder Ser Rolan and those Templars. But I do not speak on their behalf but on behalf of the Grand Cleric...Elthina has trusted Knight Commander Meredith too long. And she is an innocent – raised by the Chantry and sworn vows at an early age. She does not understand the permission she has given."

Lambert couldn't focus his eyes. All he seemed to see was the light reflecting on Sebastian's cheeks. Sebastian was asking him to rescue himself. After all, he was right – if Lambert gave up Anders then Cullen and Sebastian would be able to convince Meredith to let him go. Ser Alrik would have no excuse to harm him. And in the process the Grand Cleric – Sebastian's mother in all but name – would be saved from doing something cruel.

With more strength than he knew he had, Lambert shook his head. "You love Grand Cleric Elthina." To himself, he sounded dry and unmoved, vaguely heartless. "I love Anders. Even if I didn't - I couldn't betray a man to torture to save my own skin. What would that make me? Even if Anders is guilty – Knight Commander Meredith forfeited her right to protect Kirkwall the moment she allowed filth like Alrik to rape and torture mages. The ends never justify the means. People who enable rape and torture – even for a good cause – are guilty. The Maker would never ask me to damn myself. If Grand Cleric Elthina lets Alrik have me" - a moment of dizziness swirled through him and he nearly fell – "she's going to have to face the Maker with the consequences. My answer is no." Then, seeing Sebastian's distress, he added, "I'm sorry."

"'Sorry'?" Sebastian's voice broke momentarily, "Why are you sorry? You are right. You will meet your agony heroically, and you will either speak or stay silent, as you are able. But I am part of the organization that allows this. The sorrow is mine."

"Brother Sebastian," Lambert said with workmanlike briskness – the same tone he used when discussing affairs of the estate with Bodahn – "please tell my Uncle to accuse me of Blood Magic. Tell him to explain that is why he never reported me. That every time he tried to do his civic duty I used Blood Control. Else Meredith will accuse him of complicity and the Chantry will confiscate the estate. I leave it to him and to Charade: my will is in the bottom-right-hand drawer of my study."

Unconscious of what he was doing, Lambert turned away, and everything inside him seemed to spill into the darkness. Eventually, Sebastian left, but Lambert didn't hear him go. Lambert sat down, leaned his back against the wall, and let himself evaporate.

The iron bars of Lambert's cell were pitted with rust like smallpox yet smoothed by centuries of human fear. Thousands upon thousands of men, women and even children had stood in this cell, holding the bars in desperation. The ooze of sweat and shame and terror left behind by these knotted, trembling, condemned hands had brought the bars to a dull shine. The walls were flat, seamless stone. The work had been done by slaves of the Tevinter imperium – by men like Fenris. In a way, dungeons never gave up their victims. The players had changed - millennia ago the jailors had been mages and the prisoners soporati; now Templars jailed mages – but the stone clung to its purpose. And the anguish of the prisoners never changed.

Lambert remembered Sister Leliana's training back in Lothering. She knew a technique called Captivating Song that could corral whole crowds. When turned inward, the resulting calm peacefulness could withstand any torture. The other side of that coin was the Litany of Adralla Rillian had taught him. He knew they came from the same roots, would have the same effect. He clutched at them in desperation, willing his mind deep inside that musical brilliance. The rhythm of the chant whispered through his body. He wanted it to sweep away the thinking, feeling person that was Lambert. Then he could let go of himself and let the darkness bear him away. Whatever happened to him, he would be safe because he would be gone.

But the thought of his friends made that difficult. He kept worrying what Fenris would do when he discovered one of his friends had been tortured to death. He worried about Anders, and who would be left to cast the Litany when Justice overpowered him, to save him from himself.

"...It's a madness, a frenzy; I only find out afterwards what I might have done"...

He worried about Varric and the wounds left by Bartrand. Varric's brother had betrayed him; Lambert was his found family. Without him, would Varric be able to resist the temptation to descend to Bartrand's level – do anything he had to for the family business?

Captivating Song would not work for Lambert - he had not learned the trick of letting go. He panicked. He knew he wasn't strong – his father had raised him to run, not fight – knew his weakness would lead him to betray Anders under torture. It might take a while, but he would not be able to hold out indefinitely. Alrik was going to capture Anders – there was nobody to warn him to leave Kirkwall... Ironically, the very fear for Anders was preventing him letting go.

He remembered something Anders had once told him. Anders had described himself as lucky, because had never been raped by Templars at Kinloch Hold - "it's not endemic like it is here, although everyone knew there were Templars you didn't cross, didn't let yourself be caught alone with. But the Ferelden Circle was one of the better ones" - then, in the same conversation, he had described being put in solitary confinement for a year – a year! - for the 'crime' of having tried to escape. "The cellar was full of Tevinter artefacts, but there were deeper levels underneath. They descended forever – under the bones of the Tower, below Lake Calenhad. You could smell the water; it was pitch black. They put the food in hatches and lowered the trays down chutes – I never saw another living soul. Buried with the skeletons and the demons." Lambert had flinched, shamed by the inadequacy of any response. He had wondered what it was like, to carry memories like that. He could see what the experience had added to Anders, what it had taken away. He had asked Anders – hesitantly, awed – how he had survived with his sanity and compassion intact. "Each night, Karl and I were together in the Fade. They could not get us in our dreams. That's why I've always feared one or both of us being made Tranquil." Then Karl had died at Ostagar – his spirit gone where Anders could not follow – and Lambert had wondered whether the loneliness had been a factor in Anders bonding with Justice. One night at the clinic, while Anders slept the sleep of the exhausted and just, Lambert had found a scrap of parchment, a poem Anders had written:

...I seek my dreams, my home, my fate,
Through every wounded year;
Through the cold fractured darkness of my hate
And the icy agony of fear.

I seek and find the Veil is tattered;
My future hides behind.
The pieces of myself are shattered; scattered
By your presence in my mind.

Such bodiless electric storms
Of creativity destroyed.
My changing, many-coloured forms
Bleed away into the Void...

He had not dared ask Anders about the poem, but it had driven him to write to Thomas asking if there was any way to free a possessed mage. If they wanted it – if they asked him to. But Knight Commander Rylock had read the letter and sent men after Anders. Her response had damned them both.

He remembered – and felt guilty for remembering because Fenris did not remember it himself, would not have wanted him to know – what Danarius had told him during Lambert's dark night of the flesh. Fenris had been Danarius' favourite slave boy long, long before the brands. Fenris had been surprisingly young to defeat grown men in the fight the magister had organized, but Danarius believed that an advantage. When Fenris had received the lyrium brands he was the same age mage children were when they discovered their powers – able to grow into them. "I'm glad it was you, my little wolf," Danarius had told him. "At one time the lad had affection for me; I remember it fondly..." Lambert shuddered. In a life more nightmare than reality, amnesia might be the only thing keeping Fenris sane. Once, Fenris had received a crippling wound and not even noticed until the blood loss; it told Lambert about the level of pain he must be in every moment from the brands. He did not pity Fenris – Fenris had earned all of his respect and none of his pity – but it broke his heart.

Ser Alrik and four others came for him soon after. Anders had described Ser Alrik as cold-blooded as a lizard. Ser Karras, beside him, was beefy-red, corpulent, with eyes the colour of conkers. The final three kept their helms on, and Lambert imagined if he took them off they would have no faces beneath. They hit him with a Smite – like being kicked in the balls, but all-over – and he found himself on the stone floor. Predictable start.

Lambert thought, wildly, of the time he had stayed late in the clinic and he and Anders had leafed through Anders' books. One was a very old, dust-shrouded copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, which had been written by two Chantry brothers named Sprenger and Kramer and contained minutely detailed diagrams of how to detect, interrogate and execute mages deemed suspect. The brothers were not Templars and had never actually faced mages, but they had brought to bear pleasure and profit wrapped in fiery zeal. The Templar Order had never taken the book seriously, but copies still existed. Lambert had had no idea his impending relationship with Alrik's toys – the coals, branding irons, thumbscrews, bullwhip, hammers, pliers, nails, knives, hatchet and skewers - would be facilitated by this little book. He remembered Anders telling him how some blathering Chantry clerics suggested offering one's sufferings up to the Maker, "It's sick, if you ask me, but they say it will get you into the Golden City. So, should you ever find yourself under vexatious interrogation, offer your shocked bollocks up to the Maker. When your backside's rudely invaded by a Templar with a red-hot poker, think: 'this one's for you, my Lord." Lambert had giggled in horrified delight and swatted Anders with the book.

He wasn't laughing now.

To thrust out some flicker of his own will before its engulfment, he forced himself to look up and meet the eyes.

"I'm an agent of the Divine," he told Alrik, wishing his voice sounded jaunty rather than shaky, "She sent me to tell you what a jackass you are."

Alrik did not answer – did not think him human enough to answer – but one of the faceless Templars did. A voice from inside the helm spoke, with weary bitterness, "That's right. Joke. The abomination has killed and will kill again and it is a joke to you mages."

Lambert told her, "Everything they are going to do to me they want to do to you. It is not because I am a mage it is because they are sadists."

She said, "I don't care. Rolan was my brother. You are going to tell us where the abomination is hiding and I am going to hunt it down and rip its heart out."

She did not really see Anders as 'it' he knew – her hatred told him that. It was only possible to hate a person. If it were a demon or a darkspawn or an animal who killed your family you did not hate, you only killed. The dehumanization was for her own peace of mind.

Karras' goons stared vacantly ahead, as if the conversation had used up their allotment of brain cells for the day and they had nothing left to think with. They knew, deep down, it couldn't really be the Maker's work to tear off a mage's nipples with pincers; knew it wouldn't make Kirkwall one bit safer. They didn't care, though, since they had discovered no high on Thedas came close; nor (they would wager later, over brandy and extra lyrium) in the Golden City probably. Alrik, on the other hand, managed to wrap mutilations in science and the Chant of Light. He saw himself as a healer – didn't healers have to cut out gangrene to save the patients? The mages were gangrene and they needed to be cut away from the Fade in order to save the body of Kirkwall.

At the centre of the Pit were squares of cells known as the Box, and at the heart of these was the place people didn't talk about and didn't like to think existed: the place Alrik had made his own. The chairs were old, left over from the days when Tevinter nobles liked to watch the way prisoners were questioned; the wood was dry and porous enough to hold bloodstains. Half a dozen large, heavy tables lined the walls, each set at a strange angle so their surfaces were nearly upright. They were similar to the wooden frames Orlesian artists used to hold their work while painting. All the tables were fitted with leather harnesses and straps. Wood and leather showed dried and crusted bloodstains. Grooves had been cut in the floor, running along beneath the tables and meeting in a shallow pit at the room's far end. The system was designed to guide the flow of spilled blood. The blood excited the Templars, but, in a dark moment of understanding, Lambert realized its other purpose was to tempt the mages. He could feel the dark pull of Blood Magic – like iron and chocolate – the temptation to use it to escape his bonds. That's what this place was: not just somewhere for Alrik to get his jollies but a laboratory to discover what it took to push mages to Blood Magic and possession. Two of the tables were occupied.

There was an elderly man on the first table and when he saw Alrik he began to writhe against his bonds. One arm was gone from the elbow down and he beat the stump against the wood. Gibberings poured from his mouth. His tongue had been cut out. Excretions stained his legs and the table.

On the second table Lambert was horrified to recognise young Alain. The boy – he could not be older than seventeen – had been part of Decimus' rebellion but, appalled by his casual use of Blood Magic and necromancy, had turned himself in. Meredith had ordered Alrik to interrogate him to find Decimus and the others and the boy had broken quickly, done every desperate and terrible thing he could think of to make his tormentors stop. Following his information had led the Templars to the mage beside him, but Decimus and Grace had escaped. Ser Thrask had pursued them but swore they had been killed. Meredith had ordered Alain to be released but apparently the paperwork moved slowly in the Gallows. Alain's face was chalky: not physically battered, but nonetheless haggard and abused. His eyes stared at Lambert: dark pits from which the intelligence had been burned out. Old blood crusted his wrists. A small, caked pool stained the table between his legs. Karras and his goons had enjoyed him. Alain looked like a person who had been used until the only part of him left alive was his sense of horror.

When they tied him to the third table Alrik came alive, but not with life. His eyes held an infinite greed that devoured the devourer; he breathed death on him and touched him with filthy and malicious hands. The Mana Cleanse erupted, and his brain nova-d, thinning out at light-speed to a white nullity.

When he came to himself he found that he lay naked against the table. Something propped up his head. Straps bound his arms, chest and legs; he might have been encased in a block of ice, so powerless was he to compel the least movement from the least part of his body.

From somewhere behind him came slight sounds: the creak and soft frictions of heavy tarpaulin shifted to accommodate some business involving small clicking and hissing noises. The smell of lyrium filled the air and the Veil fluttered. The slow knock of sabatons on stone loudened. Alrik's face was inanimate, an image of detachment, and his hand - with the light, solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds - rested on his naked thigh. There, from his neck on down, lay a nothingness freely possessed by a monster.

Lambert thought to himself, "I bet you hate that you are not a Blood Mage. You can't rape my thoughts the way Danarius could, or use me as a Blood Puppet, or kill me then summon a spirit to rifle through my last memories. You can put me through the Harrowing but I don't sell out to demons. You can make me Tranquil but Rylock proved it is reversible. You'll have to resort to cruder methods."

Then his false self-confidence collapsed. Who was he kidding? He wasn't strong. Unlike Fenris, he couldn't endure pain. And he was vain. He loved his body: as a child because it could swim like a fish and throw a wicked curve ball in baseball (his father had taught him) then later because he had discovered he was gorgeous. Everyone – men and women - had desired him: even Danarius had picked him because he was a handsome young man with 'efficacious' mage blood. "Your blood is special, Hawke," Rillian had told him when they faced Corypheus. But Alrik would carve him up like scrimshaw without desire, without even hatred; his body a slab of meat on a butcher's block that happened to be still breathing. He would take his beauty and his body and his health, one cut at a time, and by the end not even Anders would want him, not even Carver would recognize him.

Lambert's store of stoicism lasted exactly two minutes eight seconds. But after they had broken the second finger he began to blag. Not blab – he was careful not to give away Anders or any member of the mage resistance – careful not to betray anyone who could be hurt. But he counted on his way with words to give his interrogators what they wanted. He chose his co-conspirators from those who were protected from the Chantry: the Grey Wardens, the Antivan Crows and Danarius (he figured he may as well implicate the Tevinter Blood Mage who was truly preying on Kirkwall - maybe at least some of these Templars would actually get off their arses and do something to help Fenris). He invented a dead Grey Warden named Kristoff, whose corpse was inhabited by Justice. The Broodmother got involved as well – after pleasuring her Lambert took instruction from his demonic master – the biggest, purplest Desire demon ever – and organized a Dark Ritual in which he transferred the spirit from the rotting corpse to Anders (no harm in naming Anders – they already knew he was possessed, just not where to find him).

"Your brother is a Grey Warden..." Alrik said in his curiously monotone voice.

"Yes, Carver was involved too," Lambert agreed – thinking his brother would raise an eyebrow if this got out, or possibly hell. But Carver was protected by the Grey Wardens and the King of Ferelden – the only damage would be to his delicate sensibilities.

Lambert had just gotten to the part where he knelt before the Desire demon and delivered the osculum infame - the 'infamous kiss' illustrated so graphically in the Malleus – when he noted with satisfaction Karras was eyeing him with beefy red lasciviousness and breathing hard. He thought how sick it was he was actually hoping for this swine to rape him because it was easier than the alternative. He'd had extreme clients in his time and he'd take Karras' tiny dick over Alrik's instruments any day. Karras' desires were dark but human. Alrik had an infinite capacity for sadism in contrast to Lambert's very finite capacity for endurance.

So he came to the 'climax' of his tale with enthusiasm: necrophilia, coprophilia, bestiality, incest (a five-star knees-up if ever there was one - he could see some of the Templars regretting they had missed it) and was careful to act young and scared when Alrik unbound him and let Karras take his turn ("oh, no, big Templar man – what are you going to do with that sword?"). So long as Karras was enjoying him he was leaving Alain alone – Lambert was grateful for the realization, because it lent some dignity to the whole sordid thing. He also knew – couldn't lie to himself – that he would have played this role anyway. Simply because it was less painful than being in Alrik's hands – hands? Poor choice of words – and he was not brave. He wished he had inherited his father's courage. Then he blanked his mind. He didn't want his father to see him now.

He was grateful the young female Templar with muddy brown eyes had left to seek Anders at the docks (his tale had convinced them the abomination was returning to Ferelden). Somehow – he could not have said why – her presence would have made this even more humiliating.

Some time later (Lambert had lost track – he only knew lyrium made Templars take forever) Alrik returned with another prisoner. Lambert had thought he'd reached the limit of his horror but was proved wrong. The prisoner was a scared young girl – younger even than Alain - and she was babbling, pleading with Alrik:

"No... please! I haven't done anything wrong."

"That's a lie. What do we do to mages who lie?"

"I just wanted to see my mum. No one ever told her where they were taking me."

"So, you admit your attempted escape? You know what happens to mage girls who don't toe the line around here, don't you?"

"Please, no! Don't make me Tranquil! I'll do anything!"

"That's right. Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask."

Every instinct told Lambert to shut up and be grateful it was someone else who had caught Alrik's attention, and not him. He despised his instincts – said loudly,

"The Chantry frowns on Templars who take personal advantage of their charges."

Alrik looked at him in mild astonishment – as if his dinner had suddenly raised its head and protested being eaten. Then tied the girl to the fourth table with a distracted air, as if not worried about her because her turn would come.

Alrik turned back to him and poured raw lyrium into a bowl engraved with Tevinter runes. They reminded Lambert of the luminous filigree etched, with sickening precision, across his friend's body. Fenris spoke only of "those filthy markings" and Lambert had never dared show an interest, afraid his friend would think his interest that of a mage who wished to study a source of power. But he could see the runes had meaning – a moment later the Veil rippled and fluttered aside, and he saw the Hunger demon behind Alrik. The demon was a pathetic thing – its bruise-coloured face reminded him of a damaged hand-puppet worked by another. The real demon was Alrik: his smile was barbed with fine, sharp hooks of cruelty at the corners of the mouth; his eyes beamed fond, languorous anticipation of Lambert's dissolution. He said,

"I am going to put you through the Harrowing – again and again – until you have surrendered to the demon and you are together." Lambert heard the last word as an inhuman snake-pit noise, the cold hiss of ophidian tongues. Cold-blooded as a lizard. "Once I have proven all mages are vessels for demons – occupied spaces; morally bankrupt just not yet declared – I will present the evidence for the Tranquil Solution. The only way children like Ella can be useful members of society is as Tranquil. I will keep the Hunger abomination to corrupt other mages – with only a sliver of Lambert left, helpless but aware, like a hunting trophy."

"Varric's villains always undo themselves with exposition!" Lambert cried, grinning insanely. He paused, savouring Alrik's attentive silence and his own buoyancy in the hysterical levity that had somehow liberated him. "Now you've tipped your hand, what on earth makes you think I'll play along? It must kill you, but you know you can't serve me to a demon without my consent." He exulted in the momentary bafflement of the predator – in having, just for a moment, mocked Alrik's gloating assurance to silence and marred his feast.

But his gibe was answered to his own despair.

"Don't try to defy me, you little whore. You aren't strong enough. You'll sell yourself to a demon because you can't bear the alternative: a lipless, noseless eunuch; blind and doubly incontinent, whose former clients will look at him in pity and disgust."

The coincidence with his thoughts had to be accident, but the intent to terrify and appal him was clear. Alrik tapped words into his fear like coffin nails – sly probes that sought his anguish specifically, his mind's personal centre. He dipped hands into his toolbox and came up with rib shears, scissors, clamps. Lambert stared at the instruments, momentarily emptied by shock of all but the will to know the full extent of the horror that had appropriated his life.

He was suddenly disgusted by Alrik – so angry it swamped his fear. He remembered he was a veteran of the Fifth Blight, while this puling wretch had cowered in Denerim. He remembered he had fought darkspawn in the Deep Roads and lived to tell the tale. And this filth – only brave when torturing mages – was going to make Ella Tranquil just for saying goodbye to her mother. And, after her, every mage once they came into their powers – around twelve or thirteen – so he could rape them with impunity. He unleashed the raw images, hardening his mettle in the blaze of hate they lit in him. So long as he resisted Ella and the other mage children would be safe.

The blue liquid in the ornate bowl whispered a metallic song; the Veil fluttered aside. The Gallows dungeon dissolved like a painting left in rain. Lambert entered the Fade fighting and defeated the Hunger demon with ease – a poor little thing trapped and dancing to the Templars' tune – then woke up as himself.

Now Alrik would cause as much pain as he could and Lambert would find out what he was made of.

The long night had begun.

AN: The 'Malleus Maleficarum' is a real medieval text by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger and it was used during the Inquisition.