This chapter and the next are two of my favorites in the whole story. They were fun to write.

No translations.

Investigations

I took a few moments to gather some supplies I wanted, including paper and a few pencils, plus some charcoal for marking directions, if any appropriate surfaces presented themselves. "Chances are," I told Gils as I packed my pouch, "the caves will be largely free of smugglers. Giant spiders get hungry. We may need to make maps to find the nest, and may as well map out what we do find - it will help the city in the long run."

"Yes, Inquisitor," he replied.

I regarded him uncertainly. "I can trust you to speak up if you see a flaw in my plans, can't I?"

He gave a sharp nod. "Of course, Inquisitor."

I had the distinct impression I would have preferred Endris.

Harding's scouts were at least a good foil for my taciturn mage companion - Ysabeau and Crespin were twins, so similar they were difficult to tell apart until they spoke. They dressed to accentuate the similarities, of course - cut their hair the same way, and wore armor that disguised both their figures. They also fought with what seemed an instinctive understanding of where the other was, as though they were two parts of the same whole. I had seen them in battle, and they likely were the best of her scouts.

They were also cheerful and talkative, trading barbs with each other and laughing a great deal.

Once we had cleared the College, they sang loudly the rest of the way to the nearest cave entrance Harding had located, which was admittedly a better disguise than trying to sneak through the shadows - not that anyone was likely to recognize me, missing arm or not. Bull had taught me that lesson, and it was likely even more true now. I was a symbol, so no one who didn't already know me would recognize the person.

The cave entrance was an uncomfortably tight cleft in a rocky hillside - so tight that for a moment I worried Gils, broader in shoulder and chest than the rest of us, wouldn't make it. With a grunt, he managed to shove himself through, however, and we began our search in earnest.

I soon had reason to be grateful our mage had made it in. Crespin had a torch, but its wavering light was nigh hopeless for picking out details - almost as bad as the darkness it alleviated. Gils's magelight, however, shone out clear, bright, and perfectly smooth. It drifted along serenely before us, hesitating at intersections until I chose a direction, and then sailing on.

Ysabeau handled the map-making, once I revealed the supplies I had brought. "Why did you not think of that?" she asked her brother, who shrugged.

"Why didn't you?" he retorted.

The cave network was much too large for us to fully explore in a single night. Luckily Harding had left markers of her own - strips of fabric tied to or held down by rocks, less likely to fade or get washed away by the ever-present drip of water than the charcoal I had brought. But I also intended to make an actual map, and hopefully wouldn't need my marks to endure. In any case, it was absolutely clear when we were covering territory Harding had already covered - Ysabeau and Crespin had good memories, but anyone could make a mistake - and there was no chance we would get lost.

The scouts were too careful and well-trained to have spoiled the possible Qunari marks they had identified, and Crespin pointed them out to me so that I might examine them myself. I didn't find many additional conclusions to draw. Qunari feet were exceptionally large, and their boots all made precisely the same way, which made it difficult to count individuals, even if most of the tracks hadn't been covered over by newer, much more spidery ones. "They might have been walking backward, here," I did note at one point. "Possibly retreating from an enemy?" It was impossible to tell just how much newer the spider tracks were, but two relatively clear Qunari footprints showed evidence of the ball of the owner's foot pushing forward, toward the toes, rather than backward, toward the heel, implying he had been thrusting himself away from whatever was in front of him. He - definitely male, based on boot size - had either been attempting stealth or moving fast, too: his heels had only just touched the mud, most of his weight falling on the balls of his feet.

A shame that all the moisture seemed to have washed away whatever mud stuck to his boots and then to the floor - more footprints might have told me if he had paused at any point, either to watch something or to attempt a strike with a weapon.

We went on. "Those were the last of the footprints we found," Crespin told me. "Perhaps we should begin exploring new areas?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Next time we come to a split, we'll go whichever way you didn't earlier."

Accordingly, when a side passage opened up to the right some distance on, we took it. "Walk carefully," I told my companions. "This would be a tight fit for Qunari, and impossible for a spider big enough to have made the tracks we saw. We might find more evidence of them."

And so we did, just around a bend in the tunnel - a spearhead, cut with more haste than precision from the shaft. "Blood," Crespin said, examining the end with care as his sister sketched furiously, trying to catch up with our current position.

"That doesn't look like spider ichor," I noted. "Perhaps there were still smugglers about?"

I saw Ysabeau shake her head out of the corner of my eye, and her brow was furrowed with concern when I looked at her. "What?" I asked her.

"Just that we have found no evidence of them, Inquisitor," she said, remaining focused on her sketching even as she spoke. "Not impossible - but it does strike one as odd, no?"

"Fair point," I agreed. "But something equally 'odd' would have to have occurred for the Qunari to turn on each other."

"That is also true," she agreed. "A mystery, then, for the moment."

"I would like to know where the rest of the spear is," Crespin said.

I looked more closely at the point at which the head had been hacked from the haft. It was ragged - more ragged, in fact, than haste and a dulled blade could account for. "It broke, partway, at least," I told Crespin, pointing to one much longer sliver of wood still clinging to the base. "Qunari throw spears more often than use them as polearms."

"At least until they run out," Crespin finished for me. "Whoever had this, he - or she - had no other weapon, and so removed the tip to use the haft as a staff."

"Likely," I agreed with a satisfied nod, glad I wasn't the only one who had reached that conclusion. "So - a protracted battle."

"Another oddity, that we have seen no bodies, or at least blood," Ysabeau said, rolling up the sheet of paper and stowing the pencil. "The bodies might be explained by the spider taking them to feed, though even giant spiders do not usually stoop to eating dead meat. But no blood, even?"

"The moisture in the caves might have washed it away," I said. "We don't know how long it has been since all of this occurred."

"Not too long," Crespin replied. "No rust on the spearhead. It was oiled, no doubt, to protect the metal, but even oil will give way in time, and it is very wet here."

"Let me see," Ysabeau demanded, holding out her hand. Crespin handed her the spearhead and she turned it over carefully, pointing out a few very small white spots. "From the limestone," she said. "This side was in contact with the ground. It has been long enough for some of the oil to wash away and for these small deposits to form, but not so long that the oil has failed to protect from rust on the parts not in contact with a surface."

"How long is that?" I asked.

"A few days at least," Ysabeau said, looking at Crespin.

"Not more than a week, perhaps?" he added.

"Well, that's something," I said.

Gils unexpectedly spoke up. "The blood on the blade, Inquisitor. I may be able to give insight into its origin. Not here - the ritual requires preparation."

"That would be very helpful," I told him, startled to hear him speak, but pleased he had offered something useful. Crespin handed Ysabeau a bandage without needing to be asked, and she wrapped the blade up carefully before stowing it away. "What kind of insight, exactly?"

"It can be tested for lyrium, and I can tell you which people it comes from - Qunari, dwarves, elves, or humans. Or some blend of them," he answered.

"Blend? Like - if their parents were or were not of the same people?" I clarified.

"That, or the blood could come from more than one person and more than one people," he said, still stolid even with Crespin and Ysabeau grinning at the assumption I had made.

"How can you tell?" I persisted.

He shrugged. "Different blood reacts differently to magic," he said - among the least helpful answers I had ever been given.

If he could give me some insight into whom the Qunari were fighting, though, I would happily forgive him.

"What if there were animals involved?" Crespin asked, clearly as curious as I was.

"Hard to tell animals apart, but easy to tell them from people," Gils answered with another shrug.

"Good enough," I said. "Let's continue."

After a few more twists and turns, the tunnel widened into a broad passage, and eventually into what might be called a room - a large one. The four of us standing fingertip to fingertip with our arms spread, might only cross half of it, and the ceiling above was nearly lost in darkness. The floor sloped down, and there was standing water at the far side of the room. "We need to test how deep that is before we cross it," I said, pointing. "Because if we have to wade - well, we had better not until we know if there's red lyrium here, too."

"There is," Gils said with a little shudder, the first emotional reaction I had seen from him. "I can feel it...humming."

"Right," I sighed. "Of course. Spread out and let's search. Crespin, work out the depth of the water."

"As you command, Inquisitor," he said with a little flourish of a bow.

"Let me attempt to capture the dimensions of this room, and then I will help," Ysabeau said.

"All right. Gils, you take right, I'll take left, Ysabeau whatever is left in the middle when she's finished." Everyone nodded and started in on their assignments.

There wasn't much to see on the left - the terrain was rocky and unsuited to a stand-up fight, though there were pillars that I likely would have used as cover, had I been the Qunari. If they had, I couldn't tell. It was Gils who found something worth examining. "Inquisitor," he said, just loudly enough to be heard. "You will want to see this."

I joined him. "Oh. Oh my," I said. There was an enormous scorch-mark covering the floor and part of one wall in an out-of-the-way corner of the room. Not only that, but strange scratch marks on the walls presented another puzzle. "The Qunari...had a Saarebas with them?" I mused thoughtfully.

"That sounds unlike the Ben-Hassrath," Crespin said, joining us as he rolled up a length of rope. "The water will hit you about mid-thigh," he told me. "Around the knees, or a little higher, for the rest of us."

I looked down at my knee-high boots. They were good at keeping out water, but I didn't know how well they would do submerged in it, and they weren't tall enough in any case.

"We cannot pass tonight," Ysabeau concluded as she, too, finished her task and came to examine what Gils had found.

"We could try another passage," I reflected.

"But we are clearly on the trail of the Qunari," Crespin said, "and the giant spider could not have gone the direction we just came from - the passage is too narrow."

"The Qunari could have retreated that way, though," I said. "We have nothing to indicate which direction they were headed."

"No," Gils said. "They came from the passage, started across the room, keeping to the wall, trusting it to guard them from that side - and then they were attacked from behind."

I turned to look at him in surprise, and he pointed to the scratch marks on the wall, then with a wave sent his light up toward the ceiling, where thick ropes of spider silk stirred in the damp breeze that blew continuously through the caves.

"Of course," I sighed, kicking myself for forgetting my early training in the ways of my people, simply because this was a cave rather than a forest. Always, always look up. It also showed how the spider got out of this room - there was at least one large, dark gap in the ceiling - a tunnel only a creature comfortable scaling such heights could use, and there might be more beyond the reach of the mage light.

"But then," I said, examining the scorch mark once more, "this makes no sense." I positioned myself against the wall, where it was evident the spider had come down. "This is where the fire begins. It fans out that way. I have never heard of a spider that breathes fire."

Latha had warned me, I supposed.

"Clearly, this is more than a simple spider," Ysabeau said. "Who can say how the lyrium it ingested has twisted it? At least we now have some warning - and a direction. We should return to the College, allow Gils to work his ritual, and acquire proper gear for another, longer expedition tomorrow night."

"Endris," Gils said. "For tomorrow. Pull him off the other team. This is bad, and we could use a second mage."

"Good thought," I told him. "I'll discuss it with Harding." I already knew she would loan him to me - she wouldn't like what I was going to tell her any more than Gils did, and might not want me to continue the investigation myself at all.

I took a breath. "Good work tonight, everyone - we're making progress - but keep your guards up. Who knows whether that creature is hunting tonight."

There were nods all around, and I don't think I was the only one whose back itched with the feeling of being watched as we returned the way we had come.