Chapter Twenty-Five: Alone
AN: Trigger warnings. Memories of abuse (including underage abuse).
Fenris stood on the edge of the beam, one hand grasping the guide rope of the jib. The Siren's Call cut and bounced through The Waking Sea, throwing a heavy spray. It tasted like wind and brine and freedom. Her sails were decorated in flames of alternating blood-red and lyrium-blue. Ahead, Llomerryn coast was a ribbon along the horizon, all that separated vast prismatic sky from looking-glass sea. Shafts of light shot straight down into the water, calling up metallic silvers.
"You could fall through that," Lambert said in wonder. Since being rescued from the Gallows dungeon three days earlier he had drunk in each new experience. Not sure how to reply, Fenris let him talk.
"Captain Isabella says she wants you with her when she meets with Castillon. You could protect her...keep her safe..."
"You are hoping I will bed Isabella as you were hoping I'd bed Tallis. Why?"
Caught, Lambert grinned sheepishly. "Because I love you. As much as I love him. But you don't share and neither would Anders. I'll be your friend as long as I live but...you deserve more. So I matchmake. I want you to be happy."
Fenris said, "I've never bedded anyone by choice. You have an exaggerated idea of my abilities in that area."
"Isabella wants you – anyone can see it! You've got to move close, man. I'll tell you what she likes..."
Lambert was flushed with pleasure, his voice gone curiously rough. Fenris let him enjoy his erotic reminiscing. He had the feeling Lambert was making a valiant attempt to regain his old self. It had not escaped his notice – because the cabin walls were very thin - that Lambert had not bedded Anders since Alrik... Fenris drew an iron curtain across the thought, ashamed of himself. Lambert's sex life was none of his business.
They might have been teenage boys talking about the delights of imaginary women. Fenris wondered if Lambert had shared similar conversations with Carver. Lambert had once unashamedly described himself as, "every woman's man and every man's woman." Fenris was not so specific about himself – never having had the chance to discover his own likes and dislikes (never even knowing he could choose not to do it) - but he knew he found both Lambert and Isabella attractive.
Fenris had never been a teenage boy discussing girls with other teenage boys – his teenage years had been spent as Danarius' pet – but when he had joined Athenril's smugglers he had become familiar with the way men talked about women. He had never joined in, though – that and the lyrium tattoos had earned him the nickname, 'Wraith.'
He tried now, though – discussing Isabella with Lambert while really wanting to bed Lambert himself.
Lambert said suddenly, "Isabella tells me there is a tattoo parlour in a bar on the coast called Slubberdegullions. They use bamboo – the traditional method – and he's the best-regarded tattoo artist on the island. His lines are straight as those of an architectural draftsman and his calligraphy precise as any Chantry scribe's. I was thinking of a griffon. There was a girl I worked with at the Rose - she'd come from the Pearl in Denerim - who had one. The Lay Warden...she was special..." Lambert's voice went very soft and low.
He turned to regard Fenris with a sheepish smile, "I know, I know. I'm lucky I'm not a physical wreck, in constant pain. These huge boons granted by Anders' healing, why care about a few scars? Only – I'm vain. I want tattoos to cover them. I want to look like myself in the mirror and make love with the lights on. I don't want my lovers to take one look and throw up..."
Fenris did not understand Lambert's obsession with his appearance. The loathsome lyrium tattoos he had been forced to live inside like an outward skeleton – what did he care that Danarius had found them attractive? Whenever he got another battle scar to overwrite them he was pleased. Scars made him feel like a man and not like a magister's pretty-boy.
He told Lambert, "Since the Maker made you loyal, and kind, and brave, it's just as well He made you vain or you'd be more than mortal."
Lambert burst into startled giggling; his eyes – deep as The Waking Sea – sparkled with tears. "Thank you. You really are a sweet man."
"Just what every lyrium warrior wants to hear," Fenris said dryly, and Lambert's giggle became a belly laugh. It felt good to make him laugh.
A prickle touched Fenris' spine and he looked round to see Anders watching him from a cabin window. He felt something crawl across his shoulderblades: an awareness of knifing enmity, a premonition.
The Siren's Call made Llomerryn island that evening. The sky was a stained-glass window. Carmine, indigo, amber and a pale sweet pea green moved through the atmosphere in overlapping bonds of irregular width. Behind them, the silvered sea shimmered away into pale shadow. In the crepuscular light, the wave crests were an almost luminous froth. Overhead, squawking gulls flew to shelter. Their sleek forms coalesced from nothingness, only to fade again.
Sly and tentacular, the mouth-watering odours of roasting crab from the harbour cookfires tempted them. Orange sparks lifted into the multi-coloured sky from braziers. The path from the bay to the docks was a ribbon of granite that wound past ramshackle homesteads and through jasmine groves; they found themselves strolling through glades of butterflies that fluttered on the salt breeze like wedding confetti. Their erratic paths from blossom to blossom were ridiculously haphazard beside the whizzing efficiency of honeybees.
There were three figures waiting at the top of a hill, in the shelter of one of the lookout towers. Isabella's reckless, swashbuckling smuggling runs filled Llomerryn with both alarm and pride. They were legendary – but when they got too bold it meant going to the reed mats: spending months hiding from the authorities in the marshlands at the island's centre. Chantry ships from the mainland would dock, raze ramshackle buildings to the ground, fail to find who they were looking for and give up. Fenris – wraith-silent – had overheard some of the older sea-dogs talking of her with trepidation, combined with bafflement at her success: She's heading for a fall. Too chancy, doesn't listen to wisdom. Refusing Castillon's order to sell slaves was madness. You don't get ahead by fighting currents - you go with the flow. Or drown. Good thing she's found that Tome as a peace-offering...
As always, Isabella set her own style. This evening, she was in a black, close-fitting blouse, with a black jacket featuring silver buttons. She wore obsidian-and-silver earrings. Her jewelled boots were high and her black leather trousers form-fitting. No man in the crew was unaware of Isabella. Not that any would trouble her. Her martial prowess was enough to discourage the most unbalanced of aggressive suitors. She wore twin daggers and carried a version of Bianca built by Gerav. Lambert had once repeated a saying of General Loghain Mac Tir: In war, nothing is so perishable as the element of surprise. Anything a man can see, he can duplicate. Loghain had been proven right: copies of Bianca were popping up all over Kirkwall. Rillian Tabris had one. Fenris had to wonder whether the rise of mechanized crossbows that fired gaatlok would finally enable Tevinter soporati to stand against their magister owners. Anyone who could carry a tune could use the Litany of Adralla and it took no skill to fire a crossbow. It was an exciting thought.
Isabella's first mate, Casavir, stayed to supervise the unloading of the ship and its haul from Kirkwall. She took Paisley Pete, Left-Hand Rawley, Knife-Eared Jan and Brand to the island. Paisley Pete had a waxed moustache that tried to be Orlesian and pretensions of bardhood. Rawley was bull-bodied, over six feet tall. He shaved his scalp and his head looked like a battering ram. His knot-muscled arms were roped with veins, hairy as a goat. Jan and Brand were smaller, pale Elven eyes lit by compressed energy void of feeling. Isabella took Lambert and Fenris, promising to show them the bar, Slubberdegullions, and its famous tattoo parlour. Lambert tried to encourage the teenage mages Ella and Alain to stretch their legs but they felt safer on board the ship, playing with Ser Pounce-a-Lot and Incognito.
Anders did not accompany them. The mage had told Lambert, "If you want to spend seven hours sticking needles into the body I just healed, I can't stop you, but I will be in my cabin sending a bird to the resistance."
There had been an odd look on Anders' face when he had said it – he had glanced at Fenris and quickly looked away. Fenris did not have much experience reading nuances of expression but he had an animal's sense of danger.
Lambert had looked crestfallen – Isabella was cheering him up:
"So... your confession to the Templars: did you, Anders and Justice really get it on in Amaranthine? As they say, two is company but three is better." She winked at Fenris as she said it.
Lambert shrugged and grinned, not offended. "I can't say I've ever gotten to know Justice."
"No? You don't like his spear of righteousness, then? Or perhaps he thinks you're too good of a person and isn't willing to Smite you? That would be a shame: everybody needs a good Smiting now and then."
Fenris was pleased to see this had worked. Lambert's sadness lifted like a cloud in sunshine. He was mercurial as a leaping shoal of rainbow fish and mischievous as a sack of kittens.
"I think you have the right idea."
"Handcuffs, whipped cream, always be on top?"
Lambert's smile widened. He was clearly remembering his days with Zevran and Isabella: the two lovers who had made a man of him on his journey to Kirkwall from Denerim. He had told Fenris about the journey: how they had been attacked by a Qunari dreadnought and rescued by Merrill.
"So: you engaged a Qunari dreadnought in battle?" he asked Isabella.
"They engaged me in battle – I was just trying to get away. Merrill's Blood Magic saved us all."
Fenris looked very dour. If Merrill had saved the man he loved he was grateful – but using Blood Magic in a confined space where you couldn't run from the demons?
"Where I come from, we would call that insanity."
Isabella shrugged insouciantly. Her face was as brightly unpredictable as the iridescence of oil on water. "Nothing ventured nothing gained."
"Are there still sea-monsters in these waters?" Lambert was asking Paisley Pete.
"Oh, there are all kinds of perils in the deeps," Pete assured him enthusiastically, "Razor-toothed sharks with white eyes, and black whales with purple lights on them! Jagged towers of black rock, and sea-urchin-spikes as long as your arm! Tides full of green jellyfish so poisonous a single touch could kill an ogre." The would-be bard was warming to his theme and Lambert was listening wide-eyed.
City boys like Lambert thought everything underwater was otherworldly and mysterious. They seemed to think the land just stopped at the shoreline, as if the islands were just rafts floating on the infinite sea. But Fenris had grown up on Castellum Tenebris – the tower of glass and darkness built like a finger jutting up from a grey, temperamental sea. He had spent enough time underwater - phasing and then reappearing on ships belonging to Danarius' rivals - to know islands were just the tips of submerged mountains. Beneath the surface, the contours of the land continued in brutal ridges: deathly ravines, cliff-drops and secret plateaus.
"Have a drink, have a dance, get a tattoo," read the creaking sign above Slubberdegullions, and it was a pitch that packed the customers in every night. Reclining in the tattooist's chair, you could look straight out to the dune line and the water where The Siren's Call was anchored, drifting like a sleek white swan, patiently awaiting the next run.
Music hit them. Produced by flute and clarinet, it was a strangely intoxicating sound: atonal and yet melodic, spiked with rhythmic repetition. Somehow, it reminded Fenris of the Litany of Adralla.
The group sat down and ordered drinks. The place's shambolic charm and generous measures of Aqua Magus made it popular among sailors. Fenris had never tried the drink – it was virtually pure lyrium, made in Orzammar – and he did wonder whether it would worsen the pain of the brands. Currently they felt as if he were encased in a skeleton of razor wire, but the discomfort was manageable. He decided to go for it – he could always make up a batch of Apostate's Friend later, if he needed to.
"Carver got a tattoo before Ostagar," Lambert was saying, "It was a mabari, and he could make it bark."
"I enjoy a man with markings," Isabella mused – and she was eying Fenris speculatively.
"You've enjoyed many, I take it?"
"Not ones made of lyrium – and with sailors the pictures are different. Usually breasts."
"I suppose a pair of lyrium breasts tattooed on my chest would make things better."
Lambert snorted into his Purple Rain (his tastes hadn't changed), shoulders shaking with laughter.
"That's me," Isabella said brightly, "I'm a helper." Seeing Rawley eyeing her dubiously she smirked, "What? The first thing I look at in a man is his heart. The fact his tits are in front of his heart is NOT MY FAULT." Both Fenris and Lambert laughed at that. He had the feeling the three of them were going to get along fine.
Lambert swallowed and nerved himself to approach the chair. The tattooist – a whip-thin elderly gentleman named Beamdog who had been a pirate in his day – asked him questions to get a feel for what Lambert wanted. In the end he prompted Lambert to take off his shirt. Lambert swallowed hard. He tried to brazen it out, but Fenris knew him well enough to know he was afraid. Not of the pain – this was pain he chose – but because he had not yet exposed his body before the woman who had known him so well in another incarnation. Fenris saw him mutter, "Don't be a coward," to himself, and pull the shirt up over his head in one smooth motion.
"You'd better tell me you killed the other guy, man," Beamdog was saying.
"He's pushing up daisies as we speak," Lambert assured him. His voice was like bad steel scraping on stone. It had lost any liveliness. The downside of those remarkable eyes was that their death killed his whole face.
"Is the Templar bastard really dead?" Isabella whispered.
"He died screaming," Fenris assured her.
"Good."
"I'll see you in my cabin, later," she called to her part-time lover – her way of letting Lambert know nothing had changed, that he was still the same person. Lambert understood and managed a wink and a smile.
Isabella, her crew, and Fenris finished their drinks and left the bar.
It had occurred to Fenris that Isabella was not only helping Lambert by encouraging him to get a tattoo. She had also gotten him out of the way. Now she was alone with Fenris and her boys, she turned to them: her mobile, expressive face all business.
"Now: let's find Castillon."
Castillon's Landing was an enormous Docks warehouse whose ceiling was so black and high as to seem like starless space. Enormous pillars held up the corrugated iron roof. The air was chill, stale, and heavy. Lanterns gave pale light but no warmth. They passed loading bays filled like swimming pools, steel rebars that jutted like canine teeth, and shafts that yawned dangerously.
Castillon's sentries patrolled the walkways, and ten armed guards flanked him - including his right-hand man, Velasco. Fenris felt as if their small party were lost in this black-and-white space, like a chessboard of the gods, dwarfed by planes and shadows.
"Let us discuss this like civilized people." Castillon's accent was Orlesian, and so smug it set Fenris' teeth on edge. "Do you have the Tome of Koslun?"
Now Fenris understood – the reason Isabella had left Kirkwall with such haste. Why the harbour had been flaming as they left. Sebastian, Donnic, Varric, Zevran – the only people other than Lambert who had ever treated him as if he had worth – had been put in danger and could all be dead.
But he said nothing as they made the exchange – the Tome in return for Castillon's forgiveness. Kirkwall - his friends - everyone else they had left behind – they had survived the Arishok's attack or they had not, and either way killing Castillon would make no difference.
Isabella and Castillon began to discuss the future. Castillon confided plans to expand his business – asked for Isabella's help in moving 'units' - and Fenris understood these 'units' were Elves and knew he wasn't going to let Castillon walk.
He phased, the world going unreal and strange – a nightmare copy of the warehouse, rippling like an impressionist painting half-seen through rain, its edges beginning to blur and drip. He was the only real thing. He reappeared – a shadow made flesh – while his right hand was still within Castillon's chest. The man gargled with his own blood, choking to death with pitiable scrabbles. Fenris was already gone.
The Aqua Magus had set every lyrium brand on fire but enhanced his abilities. The pain, he realized, was an acceptable trade-off as he faded without effort. He folded space to come up behind the sentries on the walkway in a jagged instant of time that had the intensity of a lightning flash. He killed them one by one and they fell like nine-pins.
"Reckon you're glad he's on our side?" Jan whispered to Brand. The two Elves may have meant Isabella's side or they may have meant as another Elf who bowed to no one. He had talked to them briefly aboard ship. Jan was a former Orlesian servant and Brand was – like him – an escaped Tevinter slave. The brands that had given him his nickname were not lyrium, but the geometric markings that named Magister Caladrius: now dead at the hands of Rillian and Zevran. They joined him on the walkway, cutting the throats of survivors.
The space downstairs dissolved into chaos: curses, cries, mother, the Maker...
Velasco advanced towards Isabella. His face gleamed with sweat and rage.
"Treacherous bitch!"
He reached for her, grabbed her shoulders, threw her to the ground on her back. He reached for her.
Isabella let him lift her until she was standing in front of him. Gripping his vest in both hands, she fell backward. Startled, caught unaware, he was drawn along. She rolled and pushed her feet into the pit of his stomach. When he was overhead, she straightened her legs, hard. By releasing his vest fractionally later, she sent him into a soaring midair flip. Dust billowed where he landed.
Pete and Rawley stopped guffawing long enough to say, "You want her, Velasco? Wait till you're a man. She'll beat you like a drum."
Fenris faded without effort, reappearing behind them. In a fluidly beautiful motion, he struck, devouring jewel eyes disinterested as glass. One part of him was a wolf that lived for the hunt as much as by the hunt. The other part was a killer, too, but cold and logical. Dying men screamed, and the eerie half-light repeated it over and over.
Hayder threw down his cutlass, raised his hands, and agreed to join Isabella's crew. She accepted his surrender. Then turned furiously to Fenris,
"How could you do that to me? Castillon's heirs will have their blood-feud as soon as they hear!"
"You know he didn't deserve to walk," Fenris said flatly, "If his allies object, I will help you end them. You have saved Lambert and I... swear you my loyalty."
Isabella eyed him speculatively, personal attraction mixing with business attraction. What Fenris had done had set in motion events that would either see her as Pirate Queen of Llomerryn, or dead and forgotten at the bottom of the Waking Sea. But Isabella was bold, resourceful, and lucky. She made her decision in an instant and offered him her hand. He was not entirely sure whether to shake on a business deal or kiss it, gentleman to lady. He was still learning his way around body-language, and Isabella's confused him. Her flirtatious smile and the coquettish way she offered her hand contrasted oddly with her manlike, warrior stance. He compromised, shaking her hand and returning her smile. In her copper eyes he saw a desire he couldn't mistake. Unlike Hadriana, who had seen him as a doll she could control through Blood Magic and use as she wished, Isabella was looking at him and seeing a man. An equal. That was...pleasant.
"Ugh!" she teased, "What am I going to do with this useless Tome now?"
They returned to Slubberdegullions, the colours of sunset now flaming above the water. Scarlet berries burned like embers under lacquered leaves and pale butterflies somersaulted through the shafting light. They looked down at the sea smashing itself on the cliff's shins. The tilt and thud – the suck, crash and hiss – repeated endlessly.
"So, these Ferelden refugees you refused to sell into slavery..." Fenris had heard the story from two separate sources and pieced it together. When Lambert, his mother, Carver, Leandra and Aveline Vallen had escaped to Gwaren from Lothering there had been many seeking ship to Kirkwall. Isabella had offered these refugees free passage but had been working for Castillon. Their destination would have been Tevinter. Frightening, how close Lambert had come to being sold to a man like Danarius. Except: Lambert, Carver and Aveline had refused to desert their country and the Hawke family had used the last of their funds to sail to Denerim. Isabella had brought the refugees to Kirkwall as promised.
"Temporary insanity," she said ruefully, "A bout of foul morality. A horrifying fit of decency. What!" she muttered, seeing Fenris' expression, "I got better."
"Hmm. When you later helped Rillian Tabris free her father from Magister Caladrius, that was a relapse, I take it?"
Isabella ordered another round of Aqua Magus for the group – which now included Hayder. He, Pete and Rawley were bonding over rather unpleasant stories of the ships they had sunk.
Lambert – still topless – joined them. He was carrying an enormous pile of clothes he had bought on credit. "What do you think?" he asked shyly.
The outline of his enormous griffon tattoo was now complete – he would return to fill out the colours in a week or so, once he had healed. The animal that was now extinct but still a symbol of the Grey Wardens swept from his slender chest to his abdominals and its wings swept back to curl around his shoulderblades. Claws followed the contours of the scars around his hips and its tail disappeared into his trousers.
"Just how low does that tattoo go?" Isabella asked, her hungry smile widening. Lambert grinned.
Fenris decided not to add his own comment. He would never want Lambert to comment on the lyrium brands – or any aspect of his appearance - so had no idea what to say. It was not just that he knew he hadn't earned his Elven beauty; it was that - for as long as he could remember – he had been humiliated and degraded by the man who had enjoyed it. There was no compliment Lambert could give him - on his eyes, face, body or the lyrium markings - that he hadn't first heard from Danarius. The only compliments he could accept as compliments were for the nascent person he was building brick by brick: his courage, his honour, his loyalty. That was why Sebastian's assurance he had a soul and worth had been priceless. But, he realized, Lambert felt differently. For Lambert getting a compliment on his tattoos would be proof Alrik had not managed to take his self from him – proof the scars were just colours in the pattern of his life. So Fenris tried:
"They are attractive," he told him. As he said it, he realized it was true! Lambert's slim body and lithe dancer's muscles could carry both scars and tattoos. The griffon wings echoed the warrior angel who had saved his soul in the Fade: the present beginning to catch up to Lambert's true self.
"Come to bed," Isabella was inviting Lambert, "I want to tickle your apostate prostate. Your aprostate, if you will."
Lambert burst out laughing. "You are lucky you're so good in bed!" he spluttered.
Isabella turned to Fenris with a lascivious grin. "So: that magical fisting thing you do..."
"Oh...that," Fenris said dryly, "Yes. It's a...talent."
"Mmmm - I can see so many applications for that..." Isabella was eying him ravenously. Isabella – Lambert - Zevran was an old pattern; from the look she gave them Fenris could see she was interested in recreating it. Perhaps making it a foursome, whenever Zevran visited...
The three of them came into a strange alignment – like a planetary conjunction – and Fenris realized his first time was going to echo Lambert's. Isabella led the two men to her cabin.
This, Fenris thought giddily, is what freedom feels like. It ought to be; it must be...
Like a shadow – his feathered pauldrons now black from the Gallows dungeons – Anders left his cabin and faced them.
"Have you come to join us? That electricity trick you do is..."
Fenris already knew Anders had other plans. The look he gave Fenris was lethal. The effects of Aqua Magus were still present; the Litany on his lips...
"Anders, love..." Lambert began desperately. He had never said it in so many words, but Fenris guessed Anders had told him he was free to bed Isabella and Zevran but never him.
Dismissing Lambert without a glance, Anders approached Fenris – thrust a letter into his hands.
"This came for you today," he snarled, then turned on his heel and left.
Fenris folded the scroll back carefully. It was written in torturous Tevene, the writing of someone who had struggled to learn to read just as he had. When he saw the name, he felt as cold as if he'd been dipped in an ice-crusted river.
Fenris took the precious parchment in trembling hands. Recognizing the name, 'Varania' Lambert said softly, "I'll leave you alone."
"No!" Fenris gasped, "I need...I mean I want – I'd like you to see this." Opening this letter would require every ounce of courage he possessed. He would rather have faced a hundred enemies.
Lambert's face was anguished – clearly torn between running after his lover to apologize and being there for his friend. He chose the latter.
"I'm with you," Lambert said softly. He looked at Isabella in guilty apology.
"Anders has impeccable timing," she muttered darkly.
Lambert followed Fenris to his cabin, stood beside him as he leaned over the desk. There was scarcely room to swing a cat. Lambert's ribs and their muscle-layer had knit together; Fenris felt the ridges of tattoos and scars, the warmth of his flesh, the hardness of the bone beneath.
A pale fat stubborn nub of a candle glimmered. On the desk Fenris kept his favourite book. It was one Lambert had made and illustrated for him: recreating a beloved story his father had told him as a child. Lambert had wanted to share it with Fenris, who had never had a childhood. The book was called The Tale of Despereaux and its hero was a physically frail but brave little mouse who dreamed of a better life and fell in love with a princess. Fenris was a cynic - an assassin who had escaped Tevinter slavery couldn't be anything else - but secretly he loved the story of how goodness and intelligence triumphed over evil. Lambert was a dreamer - Fenris a closet idealist - and together they shared something fragile yet strong they would have been embarrassed to tell anyone else.
The times they had spent together in Danarius' mansion they had played ridiculous games: pretending to be knights, jousting and rescuing maidens and fighting dragons. Fenris had never been an adolescent – Lambert had once confided his only friend growing up had been Carver. He had fallen in love with another boy when they were fifteen in Chantry-loving Taskerdell. Lambert had trusted him with everything – only for the youth to inform on him. The Hawke family had been forced into another middle-of-the-night move and ended up in Lothering. Fenris had not had the heart to tell Lambert he could see a pattern there.
...Leto...that is your name. You were born in Dragon Age 9:10, three years after me. I miss my little brother and was overjoyed when Varric Tethras made contact. Thanks to you I am no longer a slave – I was apprenticed to Magister Ahriman in Qarinus and now am a tailor in Minrathous. He tells me you will be in Llomerryn – I will take ship and can be in the Slubberdegullions tavern by the last Sunday of Drakonis.
All my love,
Varania.
Tomorrow.
Fenris' painful hope shivered down to terror and rage. The letter was so obviously a trap he did not understand how Anders had been stupid enough to try it. Granted, Anders was not exactly streetwise – he had been born to well-off human parents, spent twenty years in the Circle and his two years in Darktown reminded Fenris of a middle-class revolutionary slumming. Still, a man who had been educated in geography ought to know about time and distance. Did Anders think him that stupid?
Of course, if this was Justice's scheme, it made sense. A Fade spirit thought of something and it appeared; could communicate with dreamers over any distance. A spirit only had to think of a place in the Fade and it was there. Justice hadn't realized that, since Varric had only received his permission to write to Varania three days ago, there was no way he could have gotten a letter to his cousin in Qarinus, and then to Varania in Minrathous, in time for her to reach the island a day after Fenris.
Danarius, on the other hand, could have set sail the day they left Kirkwall and reached Llomerryn from Castellum Tenebris within four days: aided by magic and with a favourable wind and current. Mages had ways of communicating instantly.
He wondered, briefly, why Anders had chosen not to enlighten Justice. Did Anders feel guilty and wish to give him a fighting chance? Was the jealous lover hoping Fenris would confront him? Had Anders not thought at all, merely thrust the letter into his hands as a means of preventing what was unfolding between Fenris and Lambert and Isabella? Perhaps all three.
No matter. The abomination's motives were unimportant. There could be no understanding between abominations and men. No mercy, no pity. What mattered was doing nothing to alert the creature. If Anders realized he knew – or even if Anders were killed and Justice returned to the Fade – Danarius would know and Fenris would have lost his only chance to finish this.
"Fen," Lambert told him, heartsick, "That letter must be a trap. You only told Varric to write to your sister three days ago."
Fenris exhaled without meaning to. He had never thought Lambert might be in on it, but it was – pleasant – to have that confirmed.
"I'm aware. Trust me."
"Always. If Danarius is coming to the island we could go to the reed mats. I'm with you."
"Oh no. I will meet him in the tavern. I have tonight to prepare the ground. Say nothing to Anders."
"You can't think – Anders never opened the seal! He doesn't know what's in it! He would never..."
"Of course not," Fenris lied smoothly, "I am concerned Danarius might be able to read the knowledge in his dreams."
Lambert's brows crinkled in thought. "If he can read me I'd better take magebane tonight – or stay up with you."
Fenris disliked risking Lambert – putting him in danger from the man who had used the teenage prostitute in a Blood Magic ritual didn't sit well with him. Danarius would certainly claim Lambert as an extra slave if this went badly. But...he also disliked leaving him on the ship with the abomination.
"Come with me to the tavern and we'll prepare the ground."
Outside the cabin, Isabella was waiting for them. She had been eavesdropping shamelessly. "Let's go then. Seems nearly as good a way to spend the night as the other would have been."
Startled, grateful, Fenris nodded. As they left the ship – taking a small boat to the shore – he caught sight of the abomination watching them. But Anders was not suspicious – merely assumed the three had gone to rent a more private room.
Fog enveloped the quays like a veil, clung to the buildings like spiderwebs. Droplets of rain glistened like diamonds. The rain-washed grey sky looked like a lake of the dead and brought a memory of remorselessly glittering pale eyes. Candles reflected in the wet stone of the tavern like stars. They were chill as a sea of ghosts, casting light but no warmth.
Beamdog was gone – the bar was deserted except for the innkeeper, cleaning up. Isabella smiled at him and offered a generous handful of coins. To Fenris' surprise the middle-aged man took one look at him and almost stammered in his attempt to give her the money back.
"No... no...my services are gratis, you understand..."
From this Fenris realized word of his killing of Castillon had spread. He was being regarded with the same mixture of terror and speculation he had gotten used to from Kirkwall's underworld. He put aside his own ashamed, half-smothered regret almost before he knew it for what it was. Lambert – Sebastian – Donnic – Varric: they didn't look at him like that. Zevran – but Zevran was a fellow professional so it was okay. He didn't care that everyone else saw a killer – it was better than being seen as a slave: a magister's pet.
Slubberdegullions had a rectangular-shaped main hall and a flight of wooden stairs at the back that led to the private rooms. Danarius and his lackeys would be claiming the main tables, so Fenris concentrated on trapping those, plus every door and window. It would be...unfortunate to set traps that would kill or injure other guests, so he traced glyphs that would only work on mages. His years hunting Danarius' enemies – setting traps for them – came to his aid. He did not create mana naturally, but the lyrium brands produced sufficient power. He prided himself on keeping an absolutely poker-face as he did so. Lambert and Isabella would never know that drawing on the brands caused pain.
Except – Lambert was looking at him in concern. He always saw too much.
"Let me provide the power."
"Have you ever set anti-magic wards?" As Lambert had never been a Circle mage Fenris doubted it.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure I could!" Lambert said brightly.
Fenris gave up and let him try. Oh well – perhaps it would be a good thing to have twice as many magical traps.
Until Lambert insouciantly approached the magical trigger Fenris had set above the door. As he neared the hovering anti-magic Fenris shouted, "Duck!"
"Don't worry – I know where my head ends."
"Keep taking chances like that, and your head will 'ends' in pieces on the floor," Fenris told him aridly.
When the area was as well-covered as he could make it, Fenris settled down to wait, patient as a predator by a waterhole. Lambert and Isabella managed a game of truth or dare. She tried to inveigle him into a game that involved her guessing the colour of his underpants (since underpants would not phase with him she was always going to be wrong) but he was dispassionate and withdrawn. Unlike Lambert - a veteran of the Fifth Blight - Fenris was not used to waiting for combat beside friends. He had always been alone. Just before dawn, he headed behind the bar and fetched a pitcher of Aqua Magus. Fenris supposed he ought to feel ashamed – the stuff was insanely expensive – but he did not.
He drank the pitcher greedily and managed to keep his face impassive when the pain hit him. It could no longer be contained within his own body; Fenris was standing there calmly and the whole room was silently screaming. But he felt the power within his veins – the ability to unmake mages – and smiled through blade-thin lips.
Without needing to be told, Isabella found a position near the top of the stairs, where she and her crossbow would dominate the whole room. On her instructions, Lambert joined her, playing the part of a courtesan she had picked up. Fenris stood by the bar, waiting.
He did not have to wait long.
When the fragile, dark-skinned Elven woman walked through the door it was a punch to the gut. He had hoped the letter was a fraud – that Varania was somewhere far away. But she was here: which meant she was either Danarius' prisoner or...she had betrayed him.
"Leto," she said, and her voice cracked like thin glass, "It really is you."
"Where is he?"
"I... I'm sorry..."
Danarius glided into the room like a chess-piece about to checkmate them. His pale robes and colourless hair and plague-grey eyes lent him the look of a bleached insect. The jewelled torque with the insignia of House Danarius reflected the candlelight in a thousand glittering points. Beneath the feverish light was a monolithic heaviness, as though the Magister were bottling up something larger than himself. His face – Danarius was ancient but had appeared to be middle-aged for the past hundred years – might have been considered intelligent and scholarly, except no-one would ever find it so. The features were strangely flat; almost reptilian.
He rustled in a sibilant whisper of silk as he turned to Fenris and said - in a voice dry as a wasp-husk and smooth as velvet - "Ah, my little Fenris. Predictable as always."
The last time he had seen Danarius – briefly, as Danarius had been fleeing his mansion – rage had carried Fenris through. Now rage had shivered down into terror. An icy hand clenched itself on his guts. Danarius' voice woke memory-shadows of broken things with sharp edges – of darkness and phasing. His vengeance was going to make the pain of the brands seem like a bee sting...
...no prisoners, understand...
Danarius' eyes lost their lustre – for a moment, the whites seemed to vanish entirely, almost as though they had been drawn back into his head, leaving only holes in a darkened skull. The chitinous soulless holes had no thought or emotion or spirituality - only a kind of alien intelligence and malignant will. Desire radiated from him in a roiling black wave. His next words rang with an eerie, hollow timbre. Fenris recognized the rotting sweetness of Blood Control.
But Lambert was already singing the Litany of Adralla. His notes were atonal yet melodic – an eerie counterpoint to the clarinet music they had heard earlier. The silver song washed away the tawdriness and filth and absurdity of what this man had done to him, cleared away the shadows and cobwebs; they fell away like cast-off rags. His mana became stained glass in motion; Fenris had the same strange sensation of falling into light he had known when Sebastian first took him to the Chantry. The derisive nothingness of Danarius' vision of him could not hold against that light. Everywhere had the fresh, washed feel of a spring morning after rain.
Fenris phased, ensuring he was invulnerable as Danarius' guards opened fire. He trod mists tarnished like the dim half-light, a grey corridor with light at its end. He lived duality: body in the Fade, mind dank and dark as death.
Isabella and Lambert ducked behind the staircase. Danarius was shielded by conventional magic – an instant later the anti-magic glyphs stripped his defences.
"Now!" Lambert told Isabella.
Her crossbow ripped the guards apart. She ducked again, fumbled with the winch, locked and loaded and reappeared. This time, she was arming the machine with vials of magebane.
In the fighting trance, Fenris was separated. Oil and water. One part of him was cold, clinical, governed by techniques familiar as thought – earning his breath, as Danarius had told him. The other part was his terror, his rage, his bitterness, all mixed into one nameless emotion that burned like the brightest fuel. After receiving the lyrium brands, Fenris' training had not denied anger; the magic ran on anger instead of mana. He had harnessed it and unleashed it on those who had opposed his master's will.
But Danarius was no longer his master.
Part of him wanted to tell Danarius that - wanted to speak to this man who had made and unmade him, even as he had scorned Lambert for unnecessary verbosity in combat. But he realized Danarius did not deserve speech. He was beneath words. Hate was what you felt for a man who had harmed you. If it were an animal, only, you did not hate; you only killed. Creatures like Danarius and Hadriana – yes, and like Alrik – were the same as sickness. They took any victim they could find; they caused suffering because it was what they did. You could no more speak to them - ask why – than you could speak to the taint and ask it why it infected people.
So he killed him clinically, dispassionately, painlessly. Lyrium blazed, lit the room in a cyan glow, as Fenris buried his arm in Danarius' chest and lifted him one-handed with his great strength. Danarius was dead before he hit the ground.
The lyrium warrior stepped over him and turned to Varania, cowering in the corner.
"I had no choice, Leto."
"Stop calling me that." The memories that had begun to surface like pale bubbles were still there, inside him, but he couldn't touch them. He didn't feel he had the right to them anymore.
"He was going to make me his apprentice. I would have been a magister. You have no idea what we went through - what I've had to do since Mother died. This was my only chance..."
"And now you have no chance at all."
Fenris towered over her and the world around him bled away.
"Please, don't do this!" Babbling, pleading. Just as Danarius' victims had begged. "Please - tell him to stop!" She was looking at Lambert, assuming that – as a human mage – he was Fenris' new master.
If Lambert assumed that – because nothing seemed impossible in this strange and naked world – tried ordering him to stand down; Fenris would ignore him and their friendship would end.
...I will not be owned...
Still...he felt...the wish... to explain, to make him understand. Because Lambert had loved Bethany. Fenris did not want Lambert to look at him and see a murderer.
"You heard her! I would have given her everything and she betrayed her own brother to become a magister!"
"Fen," Lambert said softly, his words racing against time, "Perhaps Danarius did make that offer – because he was a sadist who would never tire of finding new ways to hurt you – but he wouldn't have needed to. In Tevinter the power of a human Magister over an Elven tailor is absolute. She knew, if she refused, he would have her tortured to death – or maybe done it to her, as a replacement for you."
"Not to me," Varania said hoarsely, "To my son."
Fenris gaped like a landed fish. "I have a nephew?"
"I would prefer you to forget we exist!" Varania told him bitterly - taking the family he yearned for in one fell swoop. "Danarius' heirs will continue his work...will come for us...they've been breeding us like mabari..."
"Let me protect you."
Varania did look at him with yearning then - her fractured green eyes glimmering with half-formed hopes and ideas – but the conditioning that had made Danarius seem an unchallengeable god was too strong. What could an Elf do against a Magister?
"Our only hope is to flee. Danarius didn't take my phylactery yet. Elves can blend in. But you must never contact us – you are too noticeable..."
"I never wanted these filthy markings!" One side of him knew explanations were pointless. The world wasn't fair. Whether Fenris had asked for them or not made no difference. The brands made him dangerous to her. But...he wanted to explain...
"Goodbye, Leto."
Fenris was in too much pain – physical and mental – to follow her, but at the door she turned back. Delivered more news in a lethal bouquet:
"You said you didn't ask for this – but that's not true. You wanted it. You competed for it. When you won you used the boon to have mother and I freed."
"Why are you telling me this!" Fenris' voice cracked in rage and heartbreak
"Freedom was no boon. I look on you now and I think you received the better end of the bargain."
Fenris stood there like a clubbed ox, not knowing what to say or do. After hearing Lambert's tales of himself and his family – that always ended with them sticking together and staying one step ahead of Templars who were pantomime villains – he had yearned for a family of his own. When he had heard about Varania, his deeply-buried wish had found expression. He had feared harming her – he had been tainted by magic and what did magic touch that it didn't spoil? - but dreamed of meeting her. Of becoming as Lambert had been to Bethany: a protective brother. What had been so precious, so dear, was now low comedy. Varania didn't want him. Didn't want him near her son.
All at once he shuddered, the last traces of borrowed power bleeding away, the room silently screaming in agony. It was as if his bones could no longer support his body. As if he were no more than blood and sweat and pain and regret, seeping into the world around him. Lambert was there – wanting to support him, afraid to touch him and make the pain worse.
"I took Aqua Magus to dial up the brands," Fenris explained, with admirable steadiness, "Now I could do with some Apostate's Friend to dial them back down."
"I'm on it," Lambert told him, and together they left the bar. Isabella was the one who had the sense to search Danarius' body. Afterwards, she disposed of it with oil, flint and tinder. Smart: leaving the body of a Blood Mage who may or may not have been an abomination was asking for trouble.
This early, the cove was still drowned in grey shadow but the rising sun was amber-hot. In the burnished light, the sails of Isabella's ship billowed with dreamlike slowness. It was still raining (a mealy-mouthed drizzle) and the damp stone looked like despair.
Anders was waiting for them below decks.
Oh, wonderful! A Magister and now an abomination. This day just keeps getting better and better...
Anders looked surprised to see Fenris: as well he might. Fenris could tell his spirit was there, listening, unaware it had done anything wrong – it was 'Justice' so everything it did was just by definition – as cold and innocent as a corpse.
Anders, however, looked both guilty and angry. He went on the offensive,
"You never told us your sister was a mage! I always knew you were just jealous..."
"Anders," Lambert said hoarsely – stricken, sick - "how did you know Varania was a mage?"
"Because he contacted Danarius the day we rescued you and told him where I would be," Fenris said flatly. He had thought proving the abomination's treachery would be satisfying but now – seeing all the life wiped out of Lambert's face like that – what he felt was shame. Lambert had stood beside him, helped him - had been through enough. Fenris had just stuck a knife in his heart.
"What did Danarius offer you for me?" he asked the abomination, "At a guess, I would say his aid in freeing the remaining Gallows prisoners."
"Anders! You didn't..." Lambert was looking at Anders as though he had never seen him before. But Anders had eyes only for Fenris. The two mortal enemies faced each other.
"And don't you think they should be freed? Mages as innocent – as good – as Lambert. Mages who right now are being raped and tortured just as he was – punished because we saved him...oh, but I forget! You only care about your token mage. You'd like to see the rest locked up and Lambert alone, ashamed of his Maker-given gifts, living in a world that hates him. You'll guilt him into taking magebane – tell him mana hurts the brands – keep him barely above a soporati: helpless and dependent on you to protect him from Templars. You'll drop remarks about magic spoiling everything it touches like poison in his ear: make him feel bad for just existing. You'll take what Danarius did to you out on him and call it love."
"Shut up!" Lambert shouted, "I don't need you to defend me. You're not a well-respected authority on healthy relationships!"
Anders sneered at his lover. "You were glad enough to have me defend you at the Gallows. The deal with Danarius was the price for that. Justice told me it was either you or Fenris."
If he had been given the choice between Lambert or himself...but Fenris shut the train of thought down with a click. That was a place he dared not look. He wondered – the thought brushed his mind lightly as the wings of a moth – whether Anders' plea for understanding would get through to Lambert...but Lambert's face shifted and hardened, taking on planes and angles it had never had before.
"Then you should have left me," he said flatly, "I'd take worse than Alrik rather than betray a friend. Rather than sell a man into slavery. Shame on you."
It was a thing easier said than meant but Lambert did mean it – looking at him, Fenris knew that.
"How can you not be who you are? I never knew you. No," Lambert admitted with heart-breaking honesty, "I did. I just didn't want to admit it. I never challenged you when I should have."
For the first time the lovers' history was impotent – this was bigger than love could paper over. Anders' face, emptied of expression, achieved the innocence of shock.
Isabella said, "Anders: your electricity trick was amazing but now you are just an arsehole. Get off my ship."
Anders stared at the three of them like a beast at bay, cornered. Suddenly, he was joined by an orange blur: Ser Pounce-a-Lot appeared from the shadows of Anders' cabin and rushed into the mage's arms. He hissed at the three of them. The ginger tom was generally not affectionate to Anders - giving him the condescension of the King of Darktown – but let any outsider threaten and he would defend his human. Anders scooped him up, preparing to leave and seek passage on a merchant's caravel. Incognito mewled plaintively and Lambert's face crumpled. Maker: is he actually going to feel guilty for that!
At the foot of the steps leading to the deck, Anders turned.
"Lambert: you were freed but you won't do anything to pay it forward and help the mages still suffering what you escaped. You were going to use the body I rebuilt for you to cheat on me. All you'll do with your life is play pirates and warm Isabella's cabin. Fenris: you talk a lot about slavery but never do anything to help other slaves. All you've done for the past two years is get drunk and kill people for money. Isabella: you've caused thousands of deaths by running off with the Tome of Koslun!"
She started guiltily, before swallowing regret as if it were strong drink.
"The three of you find it sooooo easy to judge me. My fault was pride: I invited possession and thought I was strong enough to remain myself. I was wrong. Very well. Now judge yourselves."
He left a silence that ached like a wound.
Fenris was exhausted, barely able to stand. The pain – which had been floating in the ether, vast and meaningless and disconnected – suddenly rushed back as if he had the right to own it. Lambert was careful not to touch him, merely said, "I'll make you up some Apostate's Friend. Then sleep as long as you need to."
Fenris followed Lambert to his cabin. It was far messier than his: just three days had been enough for it to acquire a pile of clothes, chessboard, lute, cards - plus food, water and hidey-hole for his cat: impressive, since Lambert had boarded the ship with only a dead man's clothes. And where had he got the vials and herbs and reagents from? Lambert set to work, chopping and slicing and pouring with delicacy and speed. His hands were like pale flying creatures. He handed Fenris a glass of liquid that reminded him of the Purple Rain cocktails Lambert liked so much. Fortunately, the effect was different: the drug made humans and Elves less sensitive to lyrium, made them more like dwarves. Anders and Lambert had come up with the bootleg mixture during one of their brainstorming sessions at the clinic. Lambert mixed it with magebane when he wanted to evade Templars and had reasoned it would also dull the pain of Fenris' brands. Fenris did not want to study the mixture too closely. Purple as a dead man's veins. He downed it in one.
Lambert said, "I'll look through anything Isabella found on the corpse. Perhaps there'll be notes on how to reverse the process."
As calmly as if he were talking about an acquaintance (on some level, Lambert had distracted him) Fenris replied, "I doubt Danarius kept notes. He didn't understand the process himself. He told me once he had found an ancient scroll in the Arlathan Ruins. He tried the process on human slaves and they all died. He surmised the technique worked on Elves."
"Wow! Why didn't you tell me this before!" Lambert leaned forward, flushed with excitement. "Now I know where to start. I'll write to my grandmother – Keeper Deshanna Lavellan - if the process of embedding lyrium under the skin is similar to Vallaslin she may know how to remove it!"
"Lambert..."
"Rillian will discover the cure for taint – Merrill will reawaken the Eluvians – Rylock has reversed Tranquillity - and this will be my contribution to medical science!"
"I doubt a scientific breakthrough that helps one person in all of Thedas is going to make your name," Fenris said dryly.
"Who cares? This will be my life's work. I'm damned if I'm going to let you spend the rest of your life in agony."
The brands were a burning net thrown over him, tightening and tightening. He had received them at the age mage children came into their powers and they had narrowed and narrowed his heart into a single point. Hard, unchanging and lifeless as bone; buried six feet under and loveless as stone. He had been more a blade than a person; a blade in Danarius' hand. Since meeting Varania the memories had started to bubble up – droplets of poison - but they were fractured, scattered. The net squeezed his mind into strange fragments; alive somewhere but in locked rooms. His mother...a pale ghost almost beyond the edges of vision...thinned and bled white and now faded out of existence like the passing of a shadow... The first time Danarius had used him (the elegant gesture requiring the child to stay behind; the bleak, dark calculation in his mother's eyes). Varania's budding powers were roots seeking nourishment; their mother had been thinking of the extra food, the lessons in reading – a mage in the family could lift them all out of slavery. Fenris was meat, a meal ticket, collateral damage. Was that different from a starving woman deciding which child should have a crust of bread? He remembered a wolf spider devouring a cricket who had wandered into its web. The cricket had died resignedly; its fate so common as to be unremarkable. The hopeless acceptance of his mother was no different.
Fenris remembered a wooden toy gladiator: the only time the child had ever had something unreal, yet incalculably precious. He had clenched his mind around the image; the only thing he knew for certain. Later, another slave child - an older boy - had stolen it, and Fenris had battered him unconscious. He remembered the rush and balance - the sweaty, white-knuckled rage - the fights that showed him his own agency in the only way he had ever known it: in the ruby beads of blood he drew in the vulnerable flesh of his opponents. By the time Danarius had made his slaves fight for the markings, Fenris had been ready.
…I'm so glad it was you, my little wolf...
"You heard Varania. I wanted these filthy markings. I competed for them." There was disgust and self-disgust in Fenris' voice.
...You wanted this. You were asking for it...
"Yes. You sacrificed absolutely everything to free your mother and sister from slavery. Maker's breath: you're fucking amazing!"
Lambert's eyes were very dark, very bright. Their steadfast gaze was brilliant and mysterious, and they seemed to be looking straight through him to something beyond – something Fenris himself did not see when he looked in the mirror – and liking what they saw.
Is that how you see it? Fenris wasn't sure. Perhaps he had simply thought that becoming Danarius' bodyguard – a fighting man – would mean never having to do that again. What would that make him, given he had known the Magister was going to do it to someone?
Why was I so afraid of this man?
Danarius had seemed larger than life, a capricious god… Someone who could not be fought, could not be disobeyed, could only be appeased. Fenris remembered the void eyes that had drawn him in until it seemed he must flow, like light, to their bottomless depths; his own self unravelling like the flesh that passed through the open jaws of a shark.
Danarius' death - for so long a forbidden dream - tasted like ashes. For it had come with the realization House Danarius would never stop chasing his sister and her children and the searing shame he had let Danarius humiliate him all these years - make him an accessory to atrocities - when Danarius had been, after all, just a man not a dark god. Why obey his order to kill the Fog Warriors – who were the first good people he had ever known, the first time he had even realized goodness existed – when he and they could have ended him?
I've killed Magisters like Danarius before, at his request. He died like any of them, easier than some...
"I should have killed him as soon as I got the markings."
"You were in the middle of Castellum Tenebris!"
"Oh, they'd have killed me," Fenris said matter-of-factly, "I'd have been three days dying. It would have been worth it. I should have done it. Instead, I let him...I was a coward."
"He conditioned you into thinking he had the right," Lambert said flatly, "That can be done to anyone. What's remarkable is it only took a few months with the Fog Warriors to make you realize he didn't. As soon as you knew what he was ordering was wrong you left. You didn't even know you could escape – didn't think you would survive – but you did it anyway. That's...astonishing. You're a hero. What a shame you don't know!"
Lambert's words were heartfelt but not entirely accurate. Fenris had run from Danarius because of what the Magister had made him do to the Fog Warriors, not because of anything done to him. He had only realized that was wrong during a conversation with Lambert during the Deep Roads expedition – sharing a miserable fire and the last of the stale rations. Lambert had told him, "I'm glad you got away from that...that filth." That had been his first inkling; later, Sebastian teaching him he had worth: that everyone - Elves and humans, mages and non-mages, rich and poor – was equal in the Maker's eyes, had confirmed it. Danarius hadn't had the right to any of it. That was when the hatred had rolled in. Hatred so virulent he had been reduced to drinking and smashing up Danarius mansion - oh, and killing slavers. The dark growth inside him that had led Varric to nickname him 'Broody' (because how else did you react to so monstrous a realization? Fenris certainly couldn't have talked to anyone about it). Still, he didn't need Lambert to fully understand. Lambert cared about him and that was enough. That was everything.
By now the pain had eased sufficiently for him to unbuckle his armour. The only thing he was wearing underneath was the red armband. He saw a flicker in Lambert's eyes – Lambert was exhausted, crushed and heartsick but still a man – before he shamefacedly looked away and fumbled among his pile of new clothes,
"Here," he handed Fenris a change.
He had picked the plainest of them, but Fenris would still end up looking brighter than usual. Green trousers, a poncho, and a warm cloak. Lambert was a couple of inches shorter than Fenris' six feet and had the body of a lover not a fighter, which meant the clothes fitted him like the skin around an overstuffed sausage. Fenris raised an eyebrow and Lambert tried valiantly not to laugh. It felt as if a chain were broken.
Lambert asked suddenly, "What would happen if you were to phase wearing this?"
"The clothes would end up in a pile on the ground and I'd reappear naked," Fenris confirmed. It was so with any item of clothing except the lyrium-enchanted armour – and the red armband he wore around his right wrist. He had achieved that by bonding it to the lyrium brands that disappeared into bracers that fitted like steel claws. It felt good to take a piece of Lambert with him into the Fade: an assurance he would return – be able to keep his reality in one piece – not become a tormented ghost fit only to be put down by Templars.
Lambert was grinning openly at the image evoked and – after a moment – Fenris laughed too: a low, dark chuckle.
Might as well laugh at the damn things – he was always going to have to live with the pain. For Lambert to have offered what he did meant a great deal but Fenris knew it was just a pipe dream. The brands were forever. And according to Varania I need not have bothered. She said their lives got worse after I freed them... He had thought meeting his sister would bring a sense of belonging but there was nothing to reclaim. Magic had tainted that too. Fenris believed that, but - remembering Anders' words - decided never to share the thought with Lambert.
He remembered Lambert's words and asked himself: is the problem that I freed them or that magisters still have absolute power over freed slaves? Like a nova in his mind, Varania's awful, inexplicable jealousy suddenly made sense. She had just seen him front a magister 'beard to beard' - as the heroic sagas put it – and win. If I could do that to Danarius I can do it to others!
Anders told me I never tried to free other slaves – I never even thought it possible – but...perhaps I could? And using the powers Danarius gave me for that purpose will have him writhing in the Black City!
That was...a thought too new to be shared with anyone, even Lambert. He held it close as a lover. Using the evil of the brands for an absolute good would be more healing than removing them, more than a thousand reassurances.
It was easier to bear pain as a free man than a slave – easier when reading or naming the stars or listening to Lambert sing. Lambert wanted to help him. He didn't know he already had.
Fenris sat on the bunk, legs apart and elbows on his knees. "I intend to stay with Isabella until this thing with Castillon's allies is finished – I caused it and I owe her. I expect we'll also be dodging Templars and Danarius' sons. I don't imagine either of us will live long."
Lambert sat beside Fenris and laughed in sudden mad, reckless glee. "Pirates - Templars – Magisters – who cares! Let's make a mark, Fen. You with me?" He took Fenris' hand – palm to palm to avoid the brands – and gave it an affectionate squeeze. What they had was still frail, not to be handled; but it lived, it would grow.
A series of mad, mixed-up thoughts threw up questions like fine spray. He and Lambert had reached this point by such a strange and twisted route there had to be a million reasons why a relationship could not be a good idea. But maybe that was the true seed of life – one of the unplanned progenies that arose from its ferocious twists and turns – an unexpected compound formed inexplicably inside its crucible of pain.
Lambert met his eyes. A slow, beautiful smile lit his face like a lantern. Fenris loved that smile – a smile that could light the dark of his life. He hesitantly put his right arm – more used to reaching within mages and tearing out their hearts – around Lambert's shoulders. He felt the ridges of scars and the tattoos of griffon wings; felt Lambert's taut muscles relax in increments as he leaned into the contact. He was too weary to feel much desire for him but it felt like coming home.
I am yours and you are mine, he thought, surprised and amused by his own unexpected fierceness.
"Meeting you was the most important thing to ever happen to me, Hawke. If there is a future to be had I will gladly walk into it at your side."
AN: 'Every woman's man and every man's woman' was said about Julius Caesar, famously bisexual. It was probably derogatory. I have a headcanon Carver teased Lambert and Lambert made it a point of pride (Carver is not biphobic but the Hawke brothers constantly take the piss out of each other).
'Going to the reed mats' is my version of 'going to the mattresses' from Godfather. It's how King Alfred hid from the Danes in the Somerset marshes and how Hereward the Wake hid from the Normans in the fens.
'The Tale of Despereaux' is a real children's book by Kate DiCamillo.