Chapter Thirty-Four: Until We Sleep
AN: Song is (of course!) David Gilmour: Until We Sleep
Trigger warnings: Zevran's memories of Crow 'training', references to rape and underage abuse, plus a depiction of a Broodmother that disturbed me when I wrote it.
Rillian's line, "Time undoes even the mightiest creatures...one day a new god will walk" is from Dolores Abernathy's confrontation with William in Westworld. It made me think of Solas and his wish to destroy Tevinter and free the Elves. I don't believe either Rillian or Fenris would hate humans in the way Dolores (rightly) does but I just love the scene!
It was the amazing Beta Gyre who gave me the idea of what might happen if Fiona had been able to advocate for mage rights as King Maric's Elven mistress – exactly like Warden Surana can canonically do with King Alistair. Mage rights is not a central theme of my trilogy – I'm focusing on Rillian's quest to cure taint and Fenris' quest to free slaves – but I am in fact pro-mage so can't wait to read it! In the comic 'Until We Sleep' we see Alistair believing he was raised by his father as a royal bastard – no threat to Cailan but treated with respect and not made to sleep in the stables by Eamon! This would not have 'ruined' Rowan as Loghain claimed because canonically Rowan was already dead by the time Maric met Fiona. Real Maric is a deadbeat dad who let down both his sons – here he gets to be what he should have been. No mention is made of Fiona in the comic but the two ideas just fit together so I hope Beta does not mind me using it :)
Buildings with thatched roofs boiled under the colourless dive of a dragon's wings. The beasts circled the sky, and the dead bodies of villagers – men, woman, even children – were strewn like marionettes with their strings cut. The mirror they had stepped through was a white nullity – they tried to go back and found themselves barred by unknown magic.
A muscular, dark-skinned woman wielding a broadsword large as Lethandralis barred their way. She wore the steel armour of a sten and stared at them in a strange mixture of hunger and absence. No recognition. Varric had seen her a thousand times in another guise – her swagger, her swashbuckling clothes, her defiant individuality.
Isabella's mother had tried to convert her child to the Qun – Varric had heard Qunari Tamassrans practiced something called 'conversion therapy' and it sounded horrible. When the Tamassrans had failed, Isabellas's mother had sold the fourteen-year-old in an arranged 'marriage' to the crime lord, Luis. Luis had lent her to his colleagues – including the late unlamented Claudio Valisiti – for their 'entertainment.'
This was probably why Fenris never seemed to mind her endless stream of prurient questions about his 'relationship' with Danarius; she was a victim of the same abuse, and it was her way of coping. She had escaped – but her hard-won identity as Queen of the Eastern Seas was forever marred by the orders Castillon had given her. She had sold Elves into slavery – and once, when an Orlesian ship had chased them, they had thrown these people overboard to make their escape. Perhaps some had survived - perhaps not.
Since that day, Isabella had saved as many slaves as she could, and Fenris had helped her kill Castillon. But she had once confided to Varric – after a game of 'dare, truth or promise' – that a million rescued slaves would never drown out those screams.
This may have been her nightmare – or it may have been her wish to unwrite the rapes, the guilt, the shame.
"Basra!"
"Isabella," Sebastian tried earnestly, "The Maker had love for all His creations – even the Qunari. All you have to do is repent and believe. You can't undo the sins you committed as a pirate – you can choose differently this time. Help us free Titus' slaves."
"Seb - now isn't the time," Donnic muttered, "She doesn't want to hear you preach."
"Let me talk to her," Varric told them – with more confidence than he felt. He dropped Bianca by his side, his crossbow unloaded, and tried for the conciliatory tone that worked with so many. It didn't work against Bartrand or Meredith or the Arishok, said an annoying inner voice. He dismissed it. He was a rogue, a charmer, a storyteller – born for this moment.
He stepped forward, hands by his sides.
"Rivaini...Isabella...whatever you want to be called...I won't hurt you."
Isabella's eyes were blank as copper coins. "I do not know you, dwarf." Without warning, with preternatural speed, she swung at him. "Hrah!"
Lambert was suddenly there, between Varric and the blade.
"Get back, Sparky!" he cried in horror.
"Isabella - those times in your cabin – weren't they amazing?" He shot Fenris a look of guilty apology and gave her a flirtatious wink. When in doubt, Lambert always reverted to the lessons learned as one of Madam Lusine's prostitutes. "Don't you want to tickle my apostate prostate?"
"Ughf!" Isabella's answer was to jab her elbow into Lambert's face. He put both hands up to his broken nose, which was spurting blood. "Your tongue will be cut out, Saarebas. Your fingers removed and woven into sheets. And you, dwarf – you will work in the mines until you boil in your own sweat."
"Charming," Varric muttered.
Fenris and Carver were there, between Lambert and Isabella, bared swords leading.
"Touch him again and I'll kill you, sten," Fenris said flatly.
"What he said. Me too," Carver seconded.
Lambert snapped his nose back into place with a crack that brought tears to his eyes. A gentle wash of healing magic eased the pain.
A monstrous, mushrooming dark cloud approached like a black warning.
Titus was there, half in the Fade, half in reality.
"My realm. My magic. Mages sculpting dreams. Dreams sculping reality. The Old Gods. The Dragon Gods. We shall become them."
"Varric: he's calling on demons!" Lambert shouted.
"Oh, Maker," Sebastian buried his head in his hands.
Varric led the party towards the blank mirror, praying to whatever gods might listen – and he was an Andrastian, though he never set foot in a Chantry and blasphemed with every second breath – that it would let them through.
"I don't know if you're in there, Rivaini – but if you want to live, come with us."
On the other side of the mirror was a waterfall of pure lyrium. Fenris' brands caught fire, burning like a cold cremation. He must be in agony, but his eyes were on fire with determination. He stepped protectively between Lambert and Isabella, who still appeared as a sten.
"Your mother was wrong, Rivaini," Varric told her, "This isn't you. This could never have been you."
"I will...I will not be swayed from the Qun. The Qun offers guidance. The Qun offers truth."
"My people say the same about the Ancestors," Bianca remarked ruefully, "But we women shouldn't let someone else define us. Look yourself in the eye and take strength from what you see. Damn what anyone else believes."
"Aren't you planning to leave the love of your life to go back to your arranged marriage and please your family?" Isabella muttered, disdainful of Bianca's hypocrisy.
Varic waited with baited breath – his entire future hanging on the answer.
"No," Bianca said simply. "Varric and I will marry in Qarinus as soon as we get there. I'm a scientist - I'm going to help Rillian – and Varric is planning to help his cousin, Thorold. There's always room for a dwarven businessman in Qarinus – particularly one who's friends with the Viscount of Kirkwall and the Prince of Starkhaven. If my family want to kill us - let them try."
Varric was beaming as though all his Winterfests had come at once. "She was a hero – never to be haunted by her trials or her doubts." He was beginning a new biography; although whether of Isabella – now resplendent in her own dashing clothes – or Bianca, still wearing the leather trousers and blue tunic that clung in all the right places yet teasingly hid all that was most desirable - he wasn't sure. Either way, he couldn't wait to begin.
"That's my girl. Now let's move, before Titus finds us again."
They continued deeper into the Fade, looking for Zevran. Jowan, Ser Otto, Alistair and Rillian. The realm was a place of floating islands of rock on a sea of nothingness. Some were shrouded in forest deep and rich as Arlathan. Fenris, who had been chased from Arlathan while fleeing Tevinter - they had not valued a non-mage who had been branded by the enemy – recognized the similarities and wondered if they held meaning.
"There's something strange about all this," Donnic muttered.
"You noticed?" asked Varric, with heavy sarcasm.
Donnic was not fazed. "Titus should have caught us by now," he pointed out.
"Maybe he's admiring the view?" Varric opined.
Bianca and Isabella traded glances. Men! "Or maybe we're going in the wrong direction."
Isabella was thoughtful. "Zevran helped me kill Claudio Vallisti. I'd been wanting to end Claudio for some time - for much the same reason you want to end Titus." She glanced at Fenris. Lambert stiffened, angry on Fenris' behalf: what Fenris had endured at the hands of the slaving bastards was not common gossip for Isabella to bandy in front of their friends, even if she had been through a similar experience. But Fenris was unconcerned.
"Why should that make you think of Zevran?" he asked.
"Because Claudio Valisti bought him from the brothel age seven and trained him to kill – and to use his body in much the same way Danarius taught you. Then passed him to a human man named Taliesin. When Zevran fell in love with an Elven woman named Rinna they murdered her. They always said she was a royal bastard – but I have my doubts an Elf could have been a serious contender, even if she had possessed a trace of human blood. Which means they did it purely to teach him a lesson. Zevran was starting to question the Crows and his – I won't say 'lover' to describe the human man who used him – was jealous."
"You think Zevran's nightmare will take the form of Crow training – and he will be ready to listen to us," Fenris realized. "Please - let me do the talking."
The others nodded, realizing Zevran would listen to an Elf who had also been a slave rather than humans or dwarves. The only person he would have trusted more was Rillian – but somehow they knew she and Alistair would be the last people they found. Rillian – the only person other than Fiona who had been cured of taint; Alistair – who carried the blood of dragons.
There was meaning in that – though Fenris could not have said how or why.
They found Zevran tied to a rack in the deepest level of Velabanchel. It was where Antivan prisoners were left to rot – and Crow apprentices taught to endure pain. Zevran looked about fourteen.
"I think I saw him flinch that time." Cruelty coated Taliesin's voice with a thick, sour-milk stink.
"Maybe," said the second torturer – an older Elven man who had chosen to go from prey to predator. Necessity drained all mercy from his features, like vampires drain blood. "We'll make you scream yet, apprentice. I am not going to go easy on you."
"No..." Zevran groaned. Somehow – Fenris did not know how, because he himself had never been able to laugh at Danarius until the outfit Lambert had gifted him on his twenty-fourth birthday had begun to change the memories. Imagining himself as Danarius' bodyguard wearing that ridiculous outfit – Danarius' outrage, his wounded vanity – had made him laugh. Yet this slave – no more than a boy - had somehow already known how to laugh at his torturers. Known that laughing at bullies steals their power. Fenris admired him – was glad to have the chance to learn from him, even as he felt shame for witnessing something so private; something Zevran would not have wanted him to know. "I wouldn't...want you to hold back. I'd be disappointed if you...did."
"This one has spirit," the Elf murmured. "It's a shame we have to break him."
While the Elven torturer spoke, Zevran's eyes fell on Fenris. The two assassins had gotten to know each other quite well during their four-day mission in the Wandering Hills. They had not slept together – not for Zevran's lack of trying but because Fenris had felt it would be disloyal to do it without Lambert. There were times the four of them – Fenris, Isabella, Zevran and Lambert – felt an invisible connection, but Fenris and Lambert shared something so special he was afraid it might shatter in his clumsy hands. Still, Zevran recognized him at once.
"What...what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be...here..."
"Magister Titus trapped us in the Fade. You told Sebastian you wanted to see how mad a magister can get and we're about to find out. You need to snap out of it. These are demons."
Zevran rolled his eyes. "My friend: you talk so much crap I don't know whether to offer you mouthwash or toilet paper."
"Not as much crap as you talked over our four-day mission. I still beat you at Diamondback though."
"I can't...I need to stay strong. This is my test. I am going to be a Crow. I need to show them I can tolerate...pain."
"Remember when we told Lambert, 'A good racking can be quite bracing'? We were idiots. Why should we suffer for the amusement of our 'betters'? Now come on."
"What? That cannot be and yet...you speak the truth? I can feel it. Is this nothing but a bad dream? A bad memory?"
"Oh, I think he's questioning us. That's a very, very bad thing to do, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. He will be punished for that. Severely punished."
A moment later Fenris had phased. He moved within the Elven torturer and chose that moment to become solid again. The pieces of Zevran's abuser coated him like coprolite smeared over flesh and blood and slivers of bone.
"Messy - very messy," Zevran chided him – and decapitated the other torturer with minimum fuss. He was now a grown man in Antivan leather armour, wearing the Dalish boots Rillian had gifted him. "Now," he said, looking around at the others, counting who was missing. "Where is Rillian? And our Blood Mage and two Templars," he added guiltily.
"If we're dealing with dragon blood then a Blood Mage might come in useful," Bianca remarked.
It was the nature of the Fade to guide them to what – or who - they wanted.
They met Jowan in a farmhouse in Lothering. Lambert recognized it – as well he might. It had been the Hawke family home. He had shared stories of his life as an apostate with Jowan. This was everything Jowan had ever wanted: to be a tenant farmer who had given up any magic – all magic – in order to marry Lily. His best friend, Thomas, was now Warden Amell and had saved Ferelden.
'Lily' came out to greet them and Lambert flinched. How was he going to tell Jowan his wife was a demon? How was he going to tell Jowan he had betrayed the real Lily and caused her to spend a year being tortured in Aeonar? That he had betrayed Thomas, causing Cullen to press the Brand to his forehead, rendering him forever a sleepwalker?
Jowan came to stand beside 'Lily' and his face wore a strange look – half-resentment, half-resignation.
"Darling," he told his wife, "Would you mind waiting inside? My friend's cousin and I need to talk."
'Lily' gave him a wounded look. "There are no secrets between us, my dear. If you will not allow me to share your burdens, what does that say of your confidence in me?"
Jowan put his hands up like a man unable to fend off too many blows at once.
Lambert said softly, "Walk with me." As he had suspected, the demon could not move beyond its own Fade territory – it would be eaten by stronger demons. All it could do was plead with its 'husband' to stay - as I pleaded with Fenris, Lambert thought with a wave of self-disgust. But he could not afford the luxury of shame now - he had to save his friend. To his unutterable relief, Jowan hesitated a moment and then obeyed.
The two mages had become unlikely friends. At first, Jowan had feared Lambert's condemnation – he had betrayed Lambert's cousin to a fate worse than death. But Lambert's unjudgmental friendliness – and the fact they worked together on the bench – had bonded them.
Jowan waited until 'Lily' was out of earshot and then said, "I was wondering when you'd show up. Do you think I could forget what I did to them? To the woman I love and my closest friend? Do you think I could forget what you told me? That Rylock – of all people! – saved them both. I'm ready to go with you - only promise me you won't hurt the spirit pretending to be Lily! She isn't lying - spirits are drawn to our deepest wishes and they yearn to be real. She believes she is Lily - it isn't her fault."
"I know," Lambert said, his voice shaking slightly, "I have spoken to a spirit who thought it was my mother. That spirit hadn't raised me - wasn't Leandra - but how could I turn against something...someone...who loved me? I know how you feel. The Fade is very cruel to spirits. But we can't fix that cruelty by remaining here - we have a duty."
As Lambert and Jowan spoke, the little farmhouse dissolved, and they found themselves and their seven friends in another dream.
Jowan flinched. He recognized Denerim Chantry - knew whose dream this would be. He would forever regret what he had done but Lily and Thomas still lived. Were still themselves. He did not think he could bear to tell Ser Otto the truth – he also knew it had to come from him. He and Ser Otto were friends who had served together during the Fifth Blight. He owed him this – could not delegate the task to someone else – not even a holy brother like Sebastian or a kind person like Lambert. Sebastian and Ser Otto shared their faith – Lambert had lost his mother in a terrible way – but only Jowan had seen the depravity that had been done to the love of Ser Otto's life.
To Mother Boann. Nameless by the end – only her title remained. Mother to Children who would never sleep, never dream, never love. The Architect's creation. The Mother.
Jowan, Carver (then a seventeen-year-old Warden recruit) Aveline, Oghren, Ser Otto and Rowland had all followed Rillian to the ruins of Ortan Thaig. While Alistair, Loghain, Cousland and Rylock had led their armies at Ostagar, Rillian's party had given mercy to Boann and she and the Architect had faced Urthemiel. It had been the Architect who had prevented Rillian making the Ultimate Sacrifice – paralyzing her and choosing to take her place.
The only mercy Jowan had witnessed that night was that Ser Otto's blindness had prevented him seeing what the Architect had made of the woman he loved. But Jowan had seen everything...
...Seen it turn its head on that long, pale, glistening neck. Atop the unspeakable gluttonous hulk, gravid with futile multitudes of darkspawn who would be born rotting and dead within a year, the trunk had been that of a woman. Pale, perfect breasts, luminous skin, slender shoulders, fractured dark eyes that had lived through all and understood everything...everything...the Architect had done to her.
Half-buried between the walls of Boann's living tomb had been the fleshy sacks containing half-formed Children, umbilicus-joined by tendrils to The Mother. Rillian had ended the lives of the pitiful, sickening things, and given Boann mercy. But Rillian wasn't here and the only person who could give Ser Otto mercy was Jowan.
How?
What could anyone make of truths beyond all imaginable embrace? Beyond any meaning; beyond faith?
Ser Otto was standing before Grand Cleric Odila, in the magnificent Denerim Chantry, Boann beside him.
"You are become one, but your strength is multiplied, not added, because in all things you will be more than two. Swear to each other that you are husband and wife in heart as well as in mind, in truth as well as in law."
A vast circle of their friends and comrades passed before them. Each carried a wedding gift.
The pile of gifts grew larger - he turned to his radiant bride and blushed. There were flowers, baskets of fruit, and even a skyball such as he had owned as a child. He felt a little embarrassed – a knight should put away childish things – but she had always loved to hear about his childhood. Hers had been tragic: her mother had died in childbirth, her father had sought comfort in brothels. She had been his carer through end-stage syphilis, and then been given to the Chantry. A lesser woman might have been jealous, bitter - she had loved stories of family, dreamed of her own, and helped the Elven families when no other Chantry sister went near the ghetto.
He reached to take the skyball – she had shyly told him it made her think of other worlds – but his eye was caught by the flowers. They were rotting before his eyes, blackening and curling like skin shrivelling in flame. The flowers dried to ashy flakes; the fruit bloomed with mould and then diminished to grey dust. As he watched in horror, even the wedding guests - all the knights and soldiers of Denerim who had been his friends - were stripped of flesh in heartbeats by a pulsing mass of squirming black grubs. He fought to keep his footing in the roiling decay. Where was Boann? Where was she! She would be consumed like the others unless he rescued her! He strode forward, shovelling through the squirming dark mass…but he couldn't find her…unless that was a wink of gold, down there in the abyss. He sank deeper into the dark-veined womb of rotten earth, arms reaching…reaching for the slender hand with its golden wedding ring…
…He stood on a vast and featureless plain of misty grey, as though submerged beneath the chill, drifting waters of an ocean. Once, as a boy, he had swum far out, but when warm air condensed over the cold sea a sea fret had taken away all sense of direction. The earth was without form and void but a shape began to coalesce: a slender, swift-moving form graceful as a bird. It took a moment before he recognized Boann. She whirled and spun, her fair hair blowing in an unfelt wind. He saw her mouth curl in delighted laughter as she beckoned him forward…his heart soared to watch her unfettered dance.
Boann swept along before him, silently pleading with him to follow…to follow! All his will called out to her…he found himself moving without walking, drifting closer. A new shape began to form out of the emptiness: a silver tree of liquid light. Boann stretched out her palms to cup the droplets that fell from its leaves within a silver chalice.
The silver droplets had a song. They were blood within the veins of the earth. They were the Waters of the Fade.
He tried to take her hand but could not. The grey mist pulled them apart. He fought it, knowing desperately that he must not lose her.
He was tiring, as a swimmer tires far out at sea. He reached for her hand and felt a touch - feather-light - in his. Then he slipped closer to the grey…and then the grey passed into blackness. A colossal wave at his back - a wall of black oil a mile high - advanced towards him. Its shadow crept towards the silver chalice. He turned to face it - though he knew it must annihilate him when it crashed.
It never crashed at all. It engulfed him and forced him to bear its weight.
Jowan – his brother-in-arms, the former Blood Mage who had fought so hard against his own addiction he had inspired Ser Otto to break the chains of lyrium – stood before him.
"I... I am... so sorry," Jowan stammered.
"I know. But it would be an insult to my love if I stayed here and accepted a demon's lie. Boann wants me to help Rillian cure taint – so no other woman suffers as she did. I know this because, while I have had no sense of the Maker's presence – of His existence – since He allowed that profanity, I have had an impression of her soul momentarily facing my own. There was an extreme and cheerful intimacy: an instruction to 'get on with it and help your Warden-Commander – you can see better blind than most men can with two eyes.' What met me was full of resolution. I was merely sentimental. I asked her, "If you can – if it is allowed – come to me when I too am dying."
Brother Sebastian asked softly, "and did she answer?" Ser Otto knew the question wasn't rhetorical – Sebastian had lost his parents, his brothers, and was struggling with his own questions of faith.
He smiled. "She said, 'The Maker would have a job to hold me! I will see you again when your task is done." Ser Otto was quiet a long moment, but the others held back, sensing he had more to say. "Knight Commander Rylock told me," he confided, "That the Golden City, once attained, will work backward and turn every agony into a glory..." If it had been anyone else telling him that Ser Otto would have been angry at the presumption – but he knew Rylock had suffered in a way he never could and needed to believe that "...that the Children were innocent too and in the Golden City will get the chance to be what they would have been if not for taint. But I can't think that far. I can only hope the Maker won't let Boann remember it. That the only things we remember in the Golden City are our own sins – not what was done to us."
"Well," Jowan muttered – a trace of his customary self-pity creeping back into his voice - "I guess it's alright for some, then. Lord Valiant and Lady Virtue, happily married in the Castle of Chivalry. Have you looked in a Fade mirror lately? No – stupid question! But you look like you did before the fireball and it's giving me a complex. I'd say I have a face only a mother could love but I know damn well my mother didn't love me. I don't know what Lily or Thomas ever saw in me and I managed to betray them both. Even if they forgive me, the Maker won't."
Ser Otto couldn't help it – he snorted with guilty laughter. He realized he could actually see Jowan – properly, not in the way a blind Templar saw a mage's mana glowing like a white sun. He had never actually seen Jowan before and thought he looked remarkably kind.
"I think," he said – hesitantly, because he feared it was blasphemous to start speculating about the Maker but knew Jowan needed to hear this, "that perhaps redemption works in the same way. We won't remember the sins done to us – and we won't remember the sins we've atoned for."
"That's not fair!" Jowan blurted out, "I mean: I don't care how sorry Knight Captain Cullen is – why should he get to forget that he let those scum rape...oh, sorry, Lambert!"
Ser Otto flinched. Carver looked stricken. Varric's account had 'only' had the Templars torturing his brother when he resisted possession. He didn't say anything – but Ser Otto could see him making a mental note to fight for the Gallows mages. And why shouldn't Wardens fight other injustices? If Meredith and Karras were still committing the unthinkable – ignoring Divine Justinia's edicts – then it would be morally right to help his fellow Warden.
Lambert rolled his eyes. "I guess I can always count on you to be tactful, Jowan."
"I... the only thing I can say to that is I am sure the Maker will not let me forget that sin either. I was a Templar recruit since my ninth birthday – I took my vows at eighteen. I was part of that system – and I never questioned it."
"Ser Otto," Lambert sighed, "Granted, I'm no expert on the Maker, but I'd say if anyone's likely to get to the Golden City it will be you. And, considering I cheated on my first partner and tried to persuade my second to stay in the Fade, I've got bigger things to worry about than judging Templars. The fact is, we're all sinners – but we'd better start worrying about Titus and not the Maker. We need to find Rillian and Alistair."
"Agreed," said Bianca and Donnic. Brother Sebastian was looking troubled by the conversation but said nothing.
"Well said, Sparky. Now – if I know Rillian and Alistair they'll think they're in Titus' laboratory. Rillian will be curing taint and Alistair will be saving Maric. Let's go."
Rillian woke instantly, bolted to her feet. "The blood is always the key!"
Alistair, protective as always, came to stand beside her, fearing another slide into mental disarray. She flashed him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "Urthemiel and the Architect - both mages - tell me this is the place of the cure. Aurelian Titus did not understand what he held. He thought only of restoring the lost glory of Tevinter. But that Empire is rotting. Time undoes even the mightiest creatures. One day only the bones of the magisters will remain. And upon their remains, a new god will walk – one that will never die. I don't understand his secrets, but I will. It is my fate to know them all."
"How?"
Rillian was almost blissfully unconcerned. "I know. I just don't know how I know." She laughed, wishing Alistair could share her joy, her carefree certainty of success. "Avernus improved the Joining mixture so it only kills one in ten and can restore fertility..." Her face crumpled in sorrow. "...That is, the fertility of those still fighting taint, not for people like me where the infection has run its course."
"You can't know that," Alistair murmured. "Fiona is my mother and she was cured too – my father got her pregnant with me while on a mission for the Wardens in the Deep Roads."
As he spoke, he looked to where the handsome king in vigorous middle age stood with sword drawn, ready to protect his youngest son and his son's Elven wife. King Maric had been sovereign of Ferelden and protector of its lands until their great victory at Ostagar. His older, legitimate son, Cailan, had chafed under his father's instructions - begging to be allowed to prove himself – but Maric and his closest friend, General Loghain Mac Tir, had faced darkspawn before and known this was a true Blight. Flemeth had warned Maric, and Maric had trusted both Duncan and his Warden mistress, Fiona.
Five years earlier there had been a plot by Empress Celene – who else?! - to sink King Maric's ship (the Antivan Crows and Titus had been involved too) but the plot had been foiled by a courageous bard who had warned Maric of the deception. Mistress Leliana was now Grand Cleric Leliana, replacement to Mother Ailis, and had proved even more progressive towards Elves and mages than her predecessor. Divine Beatrix hadn't liked it, of course – there had been rumours of an Exalted March on Ferelden – but Leliana was a favourite of the new Divine, Justinia, and the danger had passed.
With Leliana sympathetic to Elves and Justinia sympathetic to mages, no-one had balked as King Maric honoured the woman who had helped him save Ferelden. Fiona was technically both a Grey Warden and a Circle mage but spent most of her time at court and was a tireless advocate for Elven rights and mage rights. She was Maric's wife-in-all-but-name and Alistair's loving mother.
After their victory at Ostagar, Maric had judged Cailan ready to take his place. He had abdicated in favour of his eldest – who was expecting his third child with Anora (Fiona had been able to quickly identify the problem and cure Cailan of the infertility suffered as a result of Rowan's Blight sickness). The succession was stable, so Maric had joined Alistair and Rillian as they searched for the cure for taint. Fiona was currently at the Circle at Montsimmard, campaigning vigorously for a vote for independence – but the two women corresponded and Fiona's insights were invaluable.
Rillian did not begrudge Fiona her successful pregnancy - even if it hadn't resulted in an amazing man her mother-in-law deserved all the happiness she could get. Fiona's childhood had been horrific. Rillian's childhood had been materially hard, but all her life her father had stood between the cosy security of their loving home and the howling darkness outside. The human predators who raped any Elven woman they wanted ('oh, if you hadn't loitered there – if your dress had covered your ankles – you were clearly asking for it!') the landlord's ravaging rent, the cold and hunger and sickness. Cyrion Tabris had protected Rillian and her cousins – she knew what a father's love meant. Fiona's father had sold his seven-year-old daughter to a human slavemaster who enjoyed raping children. And yet, after all that, Fiona had fallen in love with a human man and her Elf-blooded human son.
Still, Rillian could not bear to hope. "Alistair," she said – too softly for her father-in-law to hear something so personal - "Fiona became pregnant with you while she was still fighting taint – not after the infection had run its course. She was a healer mage and King Maric untainted...I'm sorry!" she added quickly, seeing Alistair's face fall, "I don't mean to imply I blame you. Of course you wanted to become a Grey Warden – to follow in your mother's footsteps..."
...and to assure your brother you'd be no threat to his rule...
"We are both Wardens – oppos, like we said in the Blight. Our duty is to protect other people's children not create our own. Some of us have to lose our children so the rest may keep them." She was paraphrasing what her community told themselves when parents lost a beloved mage child to the Circle. She had never questioned her elders. The tall tree catches the forester's eye...how many times had the Hahren told her that!
"Enough," Rillian said – bright and brittle as glass, "What matters is we need to improve Avernus' mixture – decimation is not acceptable on a mass scale. The second stage will be finding a way to spread the cure en masse – in a place like Thedas there'll never be enough people lining up for injections. Only the nobility – and why should they be the only people who benefit? Twenty-years-ago, First Enchanter Remille found a way to make taint airborne – thankfully Loghain stopped him. The Architect remembered – and so did Remille's pupil, Livius Erimond. I am going to kill him for what he did to Rylock - but I'll get the information out of him first."
Rillian smiled in a way that caused Alistair to flinch. "I will spare you the details. But I'll wager the technology is similar to the Magrallen. Think about it: Titus wanted to use Maric's blood to control the Fade – to change the minds of every mortal being in Thedas. If it can do that, why can't it spread Avernus' cure?"
"Just so long as you don't end up being hooked to that machine?" Alistair remarked darkly.
"Oh - I can multiply blood cells in the lab," Rillian said airily. "They won't be conscious."
Jowan's warning about Corypheus' blood sample came irritatingly to her mind.
Ravenous growled as if sensing her unease. He trotted protectively beside her. Alistair closed his eyes, listened. "There's a group approaching."
The Litany of Adralla rang in Rillian' head, full of rapture. She put her hands to her ears. Alistair leapt to her, solicitous. She smiled gratitude. Her voice shook slightly. "Have we come this far to fail?"
"Remember the Gauntlet on Temple Mountain. This is another test. The most difficult. My father will help us,"
Alistair drew his sword, the metallic clatter jarring in the ancient stone silence of the enormous lab. The noise provided a counterpoint to the driving, insistent music.
"The Litany keeps dominating my thinking," Rillian confessed. "I can't concentrate. It won't stop."
Alistair said, "The Litany of Adralla works against Blood Magic, doesn't it? I don't know why the Seeker Order never taught its Templars - or maybe I do – but fortunately you learned it from Niall when you freed the Ferelden Circle."
"I didn't free the Ferelden Circle," Rillian said guiltily, ashamed, "I fell to the Sloth demon's empty promises – as did you, and Leliana, and Wynne. It was Rylock who saved us. Remember?"
Alistair looked blank. "Who's Rylock?"
A truth nagged at Rillian – something she did not want to know – had never asked to know. Was it all going to happen again? What could anyone make of truths that only took away, that never gave?
Alistair was pursuing a different train of thought. "If the Magrallen is using the power of dragon blood to change the Fade itself – to control the minds of dreamers and wipe all knowledge of the Chant of Light and even the Qun: so that the only being left to worship is Titus, with absolute power – that's Blood Magic, isn't it? So, the Litany will work against the Magrallen. You'll be able to defeat Titus – repurpose it to spread the cure."
Rillian looked at Alistair as though she had never seen him before. She had always known she loved this goofy, kind man who could polish off an entire roll of cheese in one sitting – she had never realized he was brilliant. A true partner, in every way that mattered. Suddenly, her pealing joy echoed round the lab. The sound triggered surreptitious movement and strange, hard glints of light in the coloured vials – filled with blood and reagents. Maric and Alistair exchanged nervous glances.
Confident, free-striding, Rillian advanced towards the Magrallen. It had long been empty – Titus' latest prisoner had been the Witch of the Tellari swamps, Yavana. Yavana had come to Titus with some crazy plan to free dragons and Titus had sacrificed her, believing she might have the blood of Calenhad. But, no, that had been her half-sister, Morrigan. Morrigan and Kieran were in Orlais, being protected by Morrigan's lover, Empress Celene. Now Yavana's skull decorated one of the glass desks. It was frozen in an eternal scream, and that bothered Rillian, because she had heard horror stories about oculara and how – in some strange way a non-mage could never understand – they were aware of the violation done to them.
Rillian struck the obscene heart of the Magrallen with three notes – dum, dee, dah – and the separate tones braided themselves into a chord. The vibration of each note became a glittering dazzle.
Suddenly, Maric gave a groan, and doubled over. Alistair ran to him, concerned. But Rillian did not have time to stop. There was no reason to believe her actions against the Magrallen were the thing hurting King Maric – Titus had tried and failed to make him its prisoner.
The sinister glints and shinings of the heart shuddered and its rhythm stopped. Rillian marched forward, exorcising.
Alistair put a hand on Rillian's shoulder and gestured at the lab exit. "Footsteps. Many people. We'd better deal with them first."
Rillian whistled to Ravenous and the dog guarded his mistress.
Nine men and two women entered the lab – and something about them was intimately familiar.
Rillian could tell Alistair was troubled too – because he straight away responded with flippant humour, "A Prince comes upon two dwarves, two mages, a Warden, a Rivaini, a guardsman, a Chantry brother, and the Templar who trained him..."
"Alistair?" Varric asked – clearly about to launch into his trademark sales patter.
"Your Highness, thank you. Have we met?"
"Yes."
"Was it in a tavern?"
"A place in Kirkwall called The Hanged Man."
"How much was I drinking?"
"More than you ought and less than you wanted."
"Ha!" Prince or not, Alistair was not adverse to making fun of himself.
Isabella was staring at the two men thoughtfully. "I'm still figuring this out, so...if I slap him, will it wake him up?"
"Believe me, my wife's already tried that – haven't you, darling?"
"And why did Rillian think you should wake up?" Donnic asked shrewdly.
Alistair looked at him in puzzlement. "Hey - I remember you when we fought the Qunari in Kirkwall..."
"You fought well," Donnic told him, "But - think for a moment. The Qunari invasion only happened last year. How long do you think you have been in this laboratory with Rillian and your father?"
A frown appeared between Alistair's reddish-blond eyebrows. "Father?" he asked Maric hesitantly, "I thought...didn't you abdicate after we defeated the darkspawn at Ostagar? You left Ferelden in King Cailan's capable hands. The year of the Blight was..."
"9:30," Lambert stated, "I know – it was my honour to follow the Hero of Ferelden. And the Qunari invasion happened in 9:33, just as I was escaping the Gallows. If you remember Donnic fighting Qunari you could not have come here straight after the Blight."
"Ah, but Varric has just admitted I drink more than I should! I usually get my dates mixed up – my wife will tell you I never remember her birthday."
"Alistair - we can discuss your drinking later – although I do think you should go easy on the Aqua Magus," Varric said quickly, "But, right now, there are demons coming and we need to keep moving."
Alistair looked at his father and rolled his eyes. "Demons coming – ha! That's one we haven't heard since, when, the time we fought against the Blight? Or maybe when the Witch of the Wilds last tried her lies on you..."
But Maric did not return Alistair's smile. His eyes were unutterably weary. "It's alright, my son. Let them talk."
Jowan - the only mage who had been educated in a Circle – approached the King with awe and fear. He clasped his hands behind his back to disguise their tremors. He bowed low.
"Your Majesty," he said softly, "You may be unaware that this is the Fade. Your body is in a state of oneiric suspension and your mind has been ensorcelled."
Maric took an involuntary step backwards. Rillian knew it wasn't the knowledge he was, in reality, a ruin on life-support – it was the knowledge his eldest son had died at Ostagar. Maric had been a prisoner at Velabanchel by then, and his torturers must have delighted in telling him. He had abandoned his Elven lover - Fiona had been forced to return to the Wardens and later to the Circle - and never known their son.
As if sensing his father's pain, Alistair stepped protectively in front of him, sword drawn. But Varric faced him and the weapon with complete unconcern. As a dwarf, he was more than a head shorter, but somehow Varric always seemed to be at eye level.
"I know it's tough, being handed something you've always wanted," Varric said to the young man he had saved from drunken dissolution at The Hanged Man, "Tell yourself the stories you need to tell. But don't be fooled by them. Never live your own lies."
Varric and Lambert traded an unreadable glance. Rillian guessed the dwarf had told the former prostitute, former prisoner the same hard truth. Lambert smiled in sudden recognition. She realized Varric had done for Lambert what Shianni had done for her: given them the power of seeing through their own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
"You agree, don't you, King Maric?" Varric asked soberly.
"That's really King Maric?" Isabella whispered to Zevran, "And he knows?"
"Of course he knows."
"I... always hoped I would meet you, Alistair," the tired old man whispered, "I always wanted to unwrite the past – my terrible decisions. I let Fiona go, I let Eamon raise you – and never checked his cruelty towards you. I didn't prepare Cailan for kingship – he died a glory-hunter at Ostagar because I failed him. I never loved Rowan in the way she deserved. I have met Rowan and Cailan in the Fade and tried to make it up to them – oh, the Chantry would say they were spirits pretending to be my family but they also say souls pass through here on their way to the Golden City. I thought the new King – Cousland – must have killed you as a threat to his rule, after Eamon set you up as his rival. You vanished – no one knew where you were. I swear I thought you were part of my dream – I would not have tried to keep you in the Fade with me."
"I know, Father," said Alistair – with a forgiveness almost too great-hearted for Rillian to accept. After Cyrion had raised her with all the love a child deserved - would have died any death for her - she would have judged a father who palmed an inconvenient child off to 'Uncle' Eamon – but of course Alistair did not. He was a better person than she.
Alistair sighed – looked at Varric. "Of course you're right – this is a Fade dream. It was too good to be true. I should have known better." He met Rillian's eyes. "Please tell me what we had here was real: that you really did forgive me for sleeping with Morrigan."
...Poor woman in a girl's body. The only child you'll ever give him is a child of mine...
Morrigan's words would always fill her with cold rage – but that rage did not extend to either Alistair (yes, he had been drunk and stupid, and fallen for the witch's promise to save Rillian in return, but for a man to be thinking with his 'other brain' did not strike her as a deliberate betrayal) and certainly not the innocent child. Why should the boy – she had heard his name was Kieran - be denied the chance to know his father in the way illegitimate Alistair had been denied Maric? She and Alistair would have to talk about that, but she knew she would be happy to accept his son.
"I forgave you – what we had here was real for me too."
"You're more than I deserve."
Rillian laughed. "Any woman knows that!"
Maric faced the others. "You said there were demons."
"Titus's demon is named Dehn'Kharas," Lambert said, his violet eyes filled with grief. Rillian wondered how he knew that. He went on with the air of a man confessing something worse than Alistair's betrayal. "I met this demon when I was fifteen after the boy I loved treated my heart as offal. Keran outed me as a mage to the authorities in Tantervale and my family had to flee to Ferelden. He's a Templar now, which doesn't really surprise me - but I digress."
"Keran?" Fenris asked curiously, "I expect the name of the Templar you saved from Tarohne was just co-incidence?"
Lambert shrugged. "No - it was him. Well – I was hardly going to leave him to be tortured by Tarohne just because he'd been a fifteen-year-old boy who thought what we had was sinful. His parents messed him up pretty badly. And you'll remember: he knew I was a mage and didn't betray me to Meredith."
"You didn't know that," Fenris said softly, "yet you saved him anyway."
Lambert shrugged, with the air of someone wanting to get back to the story. His friends needed to know what they would be facing.
"Anyway, in Lothering, I was guilty and depressed – I'd nearly managed to betray my father and my sister to the Circle - break up my family - all because I'd dreamed of Keran and me riding off on white chargers. I was easy meat for this demon. Dehn'Kharas is half-Sloth and half-Desire-demon and promised me I could stay in the Fade where love wins. He was much, much older than Keran but he pretended to be the boy I loved. I knew – and I chose to stay with him anyway."
He met Rillian's eyes.
"I've told you my mother woke me by throwing a bucket of water in my face – that's partially true. She did. But I was like Feynriel – I could hear her calling me, frightened, but she seemed very far away and Dehn'Kharas was there. The real reason – the only reason – I defied him was because I realized my mother and Carver were not mages and would not be able to visit me in the Fade."
He looked at Maric as if pleading for understanding.
"You chose to stay in the Fade because you thought the people you love were all here. I've always known: if my family had all been mages - able to visit me in their dreams – I'd have stayed. Which is why I tricked myself into staying in Sloth's domain: Carver was here, and Varric – my found family and the only Hawke I have left – everyone who saved me from the Gallows (bar Anders, who is probably better off without me) the Hero I would have followed into hellfire if she were damned and thirsting..."
Rillian blushed, honoured.
"... and most of all the love of my life. Fenris: the man I wanted to grow old with – a couple of old men warming their feet by the fire and reminiscing about parties and grapes and Purple Rain." He looked at Fenris and he looked infinitely old, infinitely weary. "You see why I can't marry you. After everything you've suffered – Maker knows how you managed to trust a human, a man, and a mage; to go to sleep beside me every night – the first chance I got I tried to persuade you to stay with me in the Fade: become a lyrium ghost just as Danarius wanted. I'm so sorry, Fen. I'm not what you saw. Not what I hoped to be. How can I expect you to marry me? You'll be safe with me – until we sleep. I won't betray you like that. And the only way to be sure is for you to find someone else."
Fenris shrugged. "Thankfully, I am not a mage. We'll get married – and I promise to be ready with the bucket of water."
"And if Dehn'Kharas tells me it is you and you are a Tevinter magister come to recapture my husband? You think I won't fall for its lies? Wake up an abomination and try to rape you of body and mind? Either I'll succeed or I'll force you to kill me. I won't put you through either. I'm a mage, I'm messed up after Alrik, and now I'm demon fodder. That's just about three strikes."
"What it is, is three bags full. Of bullshit. One: I'll never ask you to let me possess you, not even to save myself being recaptured or ending up a lyrium ghost. If it asks you that, it won't be me. Two: if I can't wake you I'll phase, find you in the Fade, and throw a glass of Purple Rain in your face. That should do it. Three: if I wake beside an abomination I'll cast the Litany – which I can only do because you taught me – then take you to Marethari or Deshanna. They can cast the Ritual and send me into the Fade. I'll kill Dehn'Kharas as you killed Wryme. We'll both keep each other free of demons."
"I love you!" It was more blubber than declaration.
Their friends had tactfully waited for them to finish but at an opportune time Varric interjected, "So, Titus' demon – Dehn'Kharas – it pulled all of us into the Fade, Titus included?"
Maric's grey eyes widened. "Aurelian Titus is here? If that's the case, then we must..."
"...take the fight to him," Alistair finished, father-and-son united in a moment of perfect solidarity.
...Alistair is more like his father than Cailan ever was...
Loghain's words came back to Rillian. He had not been wrong. For just a moment, she dreamed of the King he would have made – a hero who would have brought peace and justice to all, Elves and humans alike. Then she remembered Alistair was a wonderful Warden – was her oppo in her quest to cure taint – had never wanted to be King. And remembered that King Channon Cousland had stayed behind to fight Howe's men to allow his Elven servants – including her first love, Nelaros – time to escape. What other human noble would have endured torture - and dark rumours suggested it had been worse than torture (Rillian believed them, because she had seen Rendon Howe's dungeon and the evidence of his tastes) - rather than betray his men, making no distinction between Elf and human?
Channon had escaped with the aid of Delilah Howe and fought a guerilla war against Howe and Loghain from his base at Soldier's Peak. In Amaranthine they had called him the Dark Wolf. But, once he had retaken Highever, he had offered his troops to aid against the Blight. He had killed Thomas Howe - the man who had staked Eleanor Cousland out in the dirt and allowed his men to have their way with her (or maybe it was Nathaniel who had killed his own brother in the heat of combat, rather than shame the Howe name?) - but he and Nathaniel Howe had come to a gentleman's agreement and the two were allies against the Chantry that sided with Grand Cleric Iona. Valendrian was Bann of the Alienage, Anora had turned the Arl of Denerim's estate into a university that took Elves as well as humans and King Cousland had even made an Elven woman named Vaea squire to one of his knights, Ser Aaron Hawthorne.
"We don't seem to have much choice – it's Titus' magic that has us trapped, isn't it?" Sebastian was struggling to make sense of a world he had never thought he would encounter - a world he had only heard about through fearful rumours whispered from boy to boy in the Chantry dorms.
Donnic - as ever - was matter of fact, "We've just got to kill Titus before he kills us."
"Any idea how, specifically?" Isabella asked with heavy sarcasm.
"Alistair and I are Templars," Ser Otto said comfortingly, "Rillian, Lambert and Fenris can all cast the Litany. Demons only have power if you let them in - and we have all faced our deepest fears. We'll be ready."
"I've got a few ideas," Varric said helpfully, "I mean – my version of gaatlok isn't quite the same as the Viscount's - and I really wish you would help me out here, Zevran, purely as a friend?"
"My friend – I am fond of you, but much fonder of my Champion, and I am not going to betray his secrets."
Varric sighed. "Lambert: remind me how this place works again?"
"The Fade guides you towards your desire. When we're ready to face Titus and Dehn'Kharas, they won't be hard to find. But I warn you – we'll be in Titus's dream and it won't be pretty."
"I wasn't expecting hearts and flowers."
"Well, the Magrallen looks like a giant heart," Bianca pointed out.
"If that's Titus' heart then he's got bigger problems than us."
Lambert giggled. Since knowing Fenris still trusted him – still wanted to marry him - he had become his usual sunny self. Rillian got the feeling he wouldn't have minded what nightmare they walked into. She stayed close to him – she needed that confidence.
Titus' dream smelled like incense and ash. They heard the sounds of screams and rustling paper, prayers to Titus and clanking chains. Dragons watched from the spires and, with a twitch of their heads, incinerated anyone who defied the law. There was only one law – Titus' pleasure - which changed day by day. Sometimes a voice he said was too loud was too soft the day before. Slaves were tortured for days for meeting a magister's eyes – yet when a young Elven man Titus liked had been too afraid to do so he had blinded him. Slaves wept when their magisters made them suffer when they could not serve. The Tome of Koslun and the Chant of Light had been purged from the minds of every living being in Thedas. Everyone except Titus himself. Dehn'Kharas had wished Titus to ensure he could have chosen another way and was doing this of his own free will.
But Alistair's main concern was for his father. Now he knew Maric's real form was the frail ruin on life-support he had seen when they walked in, he wanted to protect him.
"Are you okay?"
"Four years, you said? Between Velabanchel and here? I didn't even realize. It all seems like days...maybe months. I had you and your lovely wife. Cailan and Rowan have moved on – they are with the Maker. Fiona is a Circle Mage and if I know her she's already got them dancing to her tune! And Warden Loghain - ha! I'd love to tease him about that."
"You'll get the chance. We'll deal with Titus and then we'll leave the Fade. I'd like us both to meet Fiona – and you and Loghain can catch up over a beer. Or ten."
"During the rebellion we drank Highever whiskey."
"Well, there you go! Reality isn't so bad..."
Alistair tried to forget the sight of the sick old man who would die if the wires were removed. Surely magic could do something for him? Jowan was a Blood Mage (Alistair's opinions on Blood Magic and necromancy had become more fluid than he had ever expected – when it was your family who needed help, morals flew away like migrating birds – and generally flew back when your own crisis had passed and you were judging someone else). And Lambert was a healer. He had made a cure for Fenris' lyrium brands - surely he could help Maric? And Rillian was a genius!
Maric put a hand on Alistair's shoulder. "You're doing well. You're a wonderful Warden. Everything your mother and I hoped you'd be. I won't need to worry about you."
The power of thought took them high above the nightmare. There were many towers above the shadows; dark buildings whose windows and doorways tilted like badly hung paintings. Even as the warped structures multiplied in Alistair's vision, crowding the lost distance, he possessed a sense of intimacy with each – a special knowledge of the spaces inside them and the avenues where dragons flew that coiled around their mass. Titus' kingdom had been built upon Maric's blood - the blood of Calenhad – and Alistair realized then that taint had not damaged it. There was meaning in that – he would have to tell Rillian. She had been cured of taint - but perhaps his own blood would not need the acceleration of infection to defeat its disease. What might that mean for her quest for a cure?
Thanks to Maric's blood, he knew the foundations of Titus' dream - a sequestered civilization where echoes of pain flourished in groaning walls – the dark valves and arteries of a petrified organism. Every corner of this corroded world was prolific with monstrous choices. Dehn'Kharas depended on choice – it was why Titus had not removed the Tome or the Chant from his own mind. Dehn'Kharas was a Sloth demon - there were rooms whose décor exuded a desolate serenity, where they might sit on plush furniture and be enveloped like weary manikins – and he was Desire, but he liked to feed on those who could have chosen otherwise.
The streets were serpentine entrails; each edifice a jutting skeleton hung with amorphous shadows. Below the treacherous crust of pulverulent earth was the subterranean hell where slaves toiled for their masters. The smooth cervix of a giant opening was filled with red lyrium; obese crystals convulsed on its vermilion surface and hundreds of tubes disappeared into the glutinous murk. The tubes were artificial umbilici. The highest towers stretched themselves nightward as if to remove themselves from the living detritus. The stars were no more than silvery cinders that showered from the mouths of great chimneys and disappeared into thick darkness. It was neither sky nor space – just a smothering blanket that sagged like wet wool. And, in the window of the tallest tower, Alistair spotted two silhouettes moving frenetically like shadow-puppets in a mad dispute.
The power of Alistair's thought took him and his companions up to Titus' throne room. It was a bleak, empty place. Within the blackness of the fortress a few lights glowed like candles in a cloistered cell. Their illumination was unsteady and dim, issuing from no definite source. The magister walked beside Dehn'Kharas. The demon had taken the form of a kindly, balding advisor who walked respectfully behind his liege, offering advice only when asked.
"Report."
"The acolytes speak to the spirits, Magister, and the spirits search the Fade."
"They hide?"
"Somehow, yes. One of their mages – the healer named Hawke – is more powerful than he realizes. He defied me as a fifteen-year-old boy – he slew Wryme in its own domain. But he doesn't know his own strength and fears his own power. We will find them."
Titus held up a warding hand. "All will fall. Kings old and new. Their blood grants strength."
Alistair led the group into the room, flanked by Maric and Rillian. "Maybe it's my imagination, but you're sounding a little desperate."
Dehn'Kharas no longer looked like Keran – no longer looked like Titus' wise counsellor. It was a red demon with three screaming mouths and darting reptile tongues. "You should have run. There are void places. Gaps between dreams. There, you might have lived."
Alistair was worried for Lambert, who looked like he was about to be sick. Fenris was already there. "Don't worry," the former slave whispered, "He doesn't look as bad as Danarius looked first thing in the morning." The two lovers shared a wholly inappropriate giggle.
"We raise you Taliesin and Claudio Vallisti," Isabella and Zevran added, and the four friends snickered.
"Ah, but Alrik needed four vials of lyrium to get it up..."
Alistair thought it high time they finished this. "We'll take our chances, thanks."
Titus, it appeared, was still interested in exposition. "The Dreamers of old commanded the Fade. The Magisters Sidereal were so close. All they needed was the blood of the great dragons. With it, I have tapped the power of gods. The Fade is magic. The Fade is reality itself."
Alistair could see he meant it. To Titus his Fade dream was a world in genesis. Rather, the unreal essence of one: all messy physicality purged, all days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares. Life so freakish and chaotic that natural laws could be suspended at Titus' whim – a miracle of aberrance and marvel of miscreation. Horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or any thwarted searching for love; nightmare made normal by absence of refuge.
"Rubbish," Lambert said scornfully, "If that were true why do Fade spirits depend on mortals to make them real? When Justice was exiled from the Fade he needed Anders' kindness to be more than a wisp tearing itself apart. I owe everything to a Spirit of Compassion but even he could not have healed me without Anders directing him. Why is everything in the Fade a cheap facsimile of Thedas? Your wretched sect believes the only value of Thedas is its ability – through mages – to suggest another world. But the Fade is a gauzy phantom, nothing but a shadowy mimic of the world the Maker made for us. Storytellers – artists – singers – mages: it's good we enjoy our abilities but they aren't worth the life of one child, one mabari, one griffon, one cat. If Fade spirits are ever to become what they deserve to be it will be they who become like us – mortals with free will - not the other way round."
Titus sneered at him. "How little you understand. In the rich reality of the Fade every formation suggests a thousand others, every word founds a world. No horror, no joy in Thedas is equal to the abyssal sensations of this place, this fine and dark tracery of limitless patterns. Everything in the Fade points to the infinite, unbounded by the strictures of the flesh. Is there anywhere in tedious mortality that can conjure the exquisite exaltation of power?"
"So all of this was just for power? That's it?" Alistair asked scornfully.
"Try being an Elven woman in a noble's estate for one day – one hour – and learn what pain it is to be utterly without power, even over yourself," Rillian said softly, "I don't condemn the quest for power: what is curing taint, or freeing slaves," she nodded at Fenris, "but the exercise of power? I only condemn the utter lack of imagination – that this is all Titus could manage. I swear my Aunt Elva came up with better stories!"
"Did she threaten to send you to Tevinter if you didn't eat your greens?" Carver wanted to know.
At that, Titus lost his temper. "Silence, soporati! Manaveris draconia..."
Maric stepped in front of Rillian and Carver. "Enough," he ordered – and his voice rang like the king he was, "Leave them be."
"You! You are but a remnant!"
Maric was standing tall, proud, his armoured body covered with the dragons that had begun his reign. He was the rebel prince who had fought for Ferelden when no-one else would; whose charisma and ability to laugh at himself had made Loghain love and follow him anywhere. His hair and beard were greying but still showed traces of blond – but his eyes, which on Thedas had been piercing blue – were black with rage.
"Your reign is over Titus. It never really began."
"Die by what wrought you!" Titus screamed, shrilly, and Dehn'Kharas summoned allies.
Alistair jumped in front of his father.
"Keep the demons off him!"
Rillian rushed for the demons, daggers drawn. Deeplight, of volcanic aurum, had been a gift from King Bhelen (neither Rillian nor Alistair cared overmuch for Orzammar's corrupt king but Rillian cared about his mistress, Rica, and her brother, Garn, who had been her docks supervisor. 'When you're a sixteen-year-old Elven girl you're grateful when your boss trains you instead of hits on you.') Stillicide was silverite and poison to all tainted creatures. It had apparently worked on the Varterral and was causing the demons to edge back. Rillian advanced slowly in order to give the others time to draw or nock and back her up.
Lambert was singing the Litany – Fenris rushed forward and decapitated two demons with Lethandralis. Decapitation was difficult in close quarters because the broad slashing required to sever the neck risked wounding others, and demon blood was toxic as taint. Isabella and Zevran moved as a unit; their blades slashing almost as one wide one.
Carver swore and cut down another demon.
"Stay tight," he warned his brother. Lambert's singing was keeping the mass of demons at bay but Dehn'Kharas was too powerful and his brother was vulnerable.
Jowan was casting hex after hex but clearly tiring. Alistair hacked and swung, keeping as much distance between himself and the demons as possible. Fenris did not share his strategy. He went after each threat to his mage one by one and, because he was a brutally efficient killer, he got away with it. Lethandralis was a burning torch keeping the shadowy demons at bay. A few dropped to all fours, like animals, and tried to go for the Elf's legs, but Fenris managed to strike at them, and strike hard. Dehn'Kharas came for Lambert and Fenris managed to cut at its crimson faces, its pointed teeth and screaming mouths.
When Dehn'Kharas fell, Titus howled in rage. "This world is mine! Tevinter will be as it was in legend. A dream made reality! The Magrallen's magic is our legacy..."
"But it's empowered by my blood," King Maric told him, "You are not the dreamer here. I am."
A flare of light appeared in the sky above them. It kept shining, intensifying, expanding overhead. The demon attack slowed. Their bodies stiffened as their open-mouthed heads turned towards the blazing sky.
Across the black sackcloth of polluted ash, a seductive sky-fire was falling, cutting like the blaze of an acetylene torch. It burned through the darkness like a comet; a searing teardrop of fire unzipping the false night.
The demons backed away. The brutal shaft of light reached their elemental selves and they possessed no mechanism to express their terror other than a whistling noise and clumsy retreat.
"Tevinter. Our golden city..."
For a moment, Maric's majestic column of light revealed the crumbling city around them. The high walls, the dour buildings, the filthy ground. The banality of evil; only menacing in its ordinariness.
Fenris was staring at Maric like one watching a guide show him the way. This was a Fade dream – but Alistair saw the former slave make the resolution that, one day, he would make it a reality. The filthy empire where magisters held absolute power over slaves would fall.
Maric decapitated Titus like a king passing judgment
Isabella and Varric looked at each other. "That's it?" they asked in disbelief. "We won?"
"You can leave the Fade, now," Maric told them softly. "Any hold Titus had over you is gone."
Alistair turned to his father, protective. "'You' can? What about 'we'?"
"You have seen my body in Titus' laboratory," the King said matter-of-factly, "I suspect the Magrallen is all that's keeping me alive now."
"Yes, your majesty – but I am going to repurpose it to spread the cure for taint!" said Rillian, "There's so much we can accomplish! I know a talented Spirit Healer – and I've heard rumours about the Dalish...about another magister, exiled to the Anderfels..."
"Verinius," Fenris remarked dryly.
"Rillian and I both know a girl called Dagna," Bianca told him, "She's brilliant. She's been researching ways to graft spirit onto flesh, to restore life."
Lambert was quiet. Having seen the filth necromancy had done to his mother, it was clear he could not agree, but he tactfully kept the thought to himself. It wasn't his decision to make. Nor was it Alistair's, he realized. Alistair turned to his father,
"You can't live in a dream, no matter how happy you are. You come back and you try to recover. If...if recovery isn't possible...you go to the Maker's side. You'll join your wife and son."
Varric nodded. The dwarf – known for lurid tales of gallant Knight-Captains pleasuring lascivious Chantry sisters – nonetheless had the soul of a poet. "It's a terrible thing, to live as part of someone else's story. You need to finish this – one way or the other – or the story will never end."
Maric nodded at Varric's words but his eyes never left his son's.
"If that is what you want...I'll try."
The dream dissolved like a painting left in rain, its colours bleeding light and dark. The sands of the hourglass ran out and the truth appeared, cast by shadow into light.
To Alistair, everything looked too real, too solid, after so long in the Fade; the Fade a cheap facsimile of reality forgotten like a dream on waking. His back ached and he could smell the rain through the cracks in the ceiling. His friends smiled at each other: real, gloriously individual, embodied spirits; not immaterial beings who saw each other as insipid phantoms, puppets of which they held the strings. Even the people who loved each other – him and Rillian, Fenris and Lambert, Bianca and Varric, had begun to only see what they wanted to see. They had woken up just in time.
But it was all very well to praise reality when you yourself were healthy and physically independent. King Maric might have a different opinion. Alistair's priority was the broken man hung like a sacrifice from the red tubes of the Magrallen. He knew Maric depended on it to survive, but he wanted to tear him away from the obscene thing, carry him to safety. He met his father's eyes. Had it been like this when Rillian met the eyes of The Mother? When everything else was gone, the eyes still showed the human soul.
The friends and Maric were not the only survivors. Maric had killed Titus in the Fade – but in reality he had woken up Tranquil. He stared with void eyes, puzzled as a newborn. Old, jaded, hungry features were collapsed inward like the petals of a rotting rose. The colourless diamond eyes were empty as those of a corpse, as though a light had winked out behind them. He grabbed at the droplets of rain falling from the ceiling as if trying to pull life back into his body.
What happened next took Alistair completely by surprise. The magister's body-slave, dressed as the teenage Lambert and Fenris had once been dressed: to please men, snatched the bladed staff – a scythe of darkness – and decapitated Titus in a single blow. It took great strength and terrible desire to do that, and Gatt appeared to possess both.
Fenris met Gatt's eyes, not looking anywhere else, "The Wardens could use you. I could use you, when I begin my war against Tevinter."
Gatt returned the look – Elf-to-Elf – but said, "I gave the Qunari my loyalty."
Fenris nodded. "If Danarius hadn't killed the Fog Warriors I'd have stayed with the first people to treat me as a man."
Then, without warning, he swung the flat of Lethandralis at the side of Gatt's head. The spy-slave went down like a felled oak.
"Why?" asked Jowan angrily, "I could have used magic to paralyze him temporality, with no pain."
Unusually for the dour mage-hunter, Fenris gave Jowan the courtesy of an explanation: "He'd have been fully conscious, unable to move, at our mercy. I'd rather wake with a headache."
"But why make enemies of the Qunari at all?" Rillian shouted angrily, "It wasn't your decision!"
At the entrance to Ath Velanis, a guttural, triumphant war cry announced the arrival of the Qunari.