The Champion and Ferelden's Warden-Commander

Alistair turned to Devon. "Gonna help us put the world back together?"

"Maybe. Before I answer that, I want to know why you didn't just go back to Ferelden and marry Anora. I thought it was the perfect setup for you to be the king Ferelden needs." Devon wasn't smiling.

"First, the Chantry would have called an Exalted March on Ferelden for putting a mage on the throne and you know it. Yeah, they might be in trouble now, but Orlais would jump in and send their chevaliers, too. Even Divine Justinia couldn't have stopped it." Alistair sat down at the head of the table. "Second, Anora doesn't appeal to me … at … all. No sense of humor. She is Loghain's daughter, after all." He nodded toward Isabela. "Look at the real woman that I love. Anora is definitely not my type. And, third, for the longest time I felt guilty for leaving Ferelden to its own devices. But, I got over it. This is my home now. Further, you believe all this ritual talk from Morrigan? Are you certain the Archdemon is dead?"

"The only wardens conscious after that fight were me and Loghain. I saw what happened to him." Devon's face lost some of its color. "I didn't see how anyone could survive that, but he did. Now, Morrigan giving birth to a new Archdemon does make me worry," Devon said as he poured himself a glass of wine.

Before he could say more, everyone jumped out of their chairs and yelled, "Birth?!"

"I guess Loghain didn't tell you that part?" Devon asked with a smirk. "Typical Loghain, leaving out the good parts." He finished pouring out his wine and sat back down. "Yes, it was a sex ritual that would have the Archdemon essence be attracted to the fetus in Morrigan's womb instead of the warden who killed it." He interrupted the next outburst. "No, the child will not be tainted … if you can believe Morrigan … but it will have the purified soul of the the Old God Urthemiel. Morrigan's disappeared. The cabin in the Korcari is empty. I checked. So, you may have eliminated Corypheus, but I may have let out an Old God."

Alistair put his head in his hands. "Dear Maker."

Devon looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, this Corypheus sounds a bit like the Architect, a powerful darkspawn emissary we killed not too long after the Archdemon." He looked up at the questioning looks coming his way. "The Wardens call it The Thaw. After the Blight is ended, not all the darkspawn are smart enough to go to ground. But, this one was different. It was smart and it talked … just like an old magister might do. And, it made other intelligent, talking darkspawn to do its bidding."

"Architect? That sounds familiar," Bethany said.

Alistair grinned at his little sister. "She's the real brains of the family. Whenever we went to Denerim, she spent a lot of time at the Chantry archives."

Devon just shook his head. "I can't believe how much free rein you and Bethany got from the Chantry."

"The Chantry is made up of people, Devon. You become friends with people. Friends trust each other. Leliana was friends with Revered Mother Dorothea … you know, Divine Justinia … and she introduced me to Sister Justine, the curator. Justine and I became friends and she let me read through all the marvelous treasures they had." Bethany shrugged. "Anora should open a library from the Royal Archives, too. Justine is itching to read those!" She took a deep breath. "Anyway! Maric was drawn into a Warden expedition into the Deeps Roads that ended with a big fight at the Circle. Maric was almost killed. That must have been … oh … thirty or so years ago? Do you think it's the same creature?"

"The Architect had a dwarf with him … Utha … she used to be a Grey Warden," Devon said.

"That's it, then! Utha was one of the wardens on that mission who went with the Architect when he escaped." Bethany narrowed her eyes. "Tell me you killed it. Really killed it. Chopped it into bits and burned it to ash without Utha sneaking away?"

Alistair put his head in his hands and groaned.

"I wasn't going to mention that, Alistair," Bethany said quietly.

He looked up and gave Bethany a small smile. Then, he turned to a puzzled Devon. "Maric and then Warden Fiona fell into each other's arms and made me during that trip."

All Devon did was chuckle. "Well, that should make you an honorary Warden, then." He just sat quietly for a moment before answering Bethany. "The Architect killed Utha to power his magic, but we cremated her, too. Sigrun, one of my newest wardens at the time, insisted on it. She used to be in the Legion of the Dead and knew exactly how darkspawn needed to be killed." He sat back in his chair. "The Mother turned the Architect into a cloud of dust and sucked him down to her lair. The Architect went down a hell of a lot easier than the Mother, a broodmother at the bottom of Drake's Fall … one of the Architect's creations who did NOT want to be intelligent and went crazy instead. I lost Sigrun there. I think we all chopped those dead darkspawn into tinier bits than we needed to before we burned them."

Devon sobered quickly when Fenris announced that Cullen was at the door requesting to see the Champion. "I wondered where he ended up," Devon mumbled.

"Give us a minute to move upstairs to the dining table, Fenris, and let him in," Alistair said. "Let's all go say hello to Cullen." Alistair then turned to Devon. "Up to you if you want to want to surprise him, Devon."

"I'll listen from the next room, if that's all right," Devon said. "I'm still not sure how much I want to help them."

"Fair enough." Alistair led the group upstairs while Leandra and Orana laid out a refreshments table. Alistair turned to Varric. "So, the Seekers fed you better than this?"

"I was just kidding," Varric replied as he stuffed his face with a sweet roll dripping with warm gooey icing.

Alistair stood in the doorway while the others took seats around around the formal dining table. He wasn't smiling as Cullen walked in. After putting his finger to his lips for silence, he cast the rune-uncovering spell and brushed it over the wary Templar. Wisely, Cullen just put his arms out and stood quietly. When finished, Alistair said, "No runes that I could find."

"Well, that's a handy spell. Nice to know the Seekers didn't hide one of their toys on me. Welcome back to Kirkwall, Hawke," the Templar said. "You always did know how to make an entrance. The Seekers are all upset that a mage overcame all the guards they had at one time."

"It was easier than I thought it would be, to tell the truth." Alistair motioned to the food and drink. "Help yourself."

Cullen took a deep breath. "Don't mind if I do," he replied as he stepped up and took a mug of juice and several cookies.

Varric leaned toward Alistair. "Uh oh, this is gonna take awhile. Curly never breaks protocol to eat with the enemy."

"Hard to know who the enemy is these days," Cullen mumbled. He turned and sat at the last open spot on the other end of the table. Before he sat down, he pulled out a sheaf of parchments. "Please pass this to Alistair. Look at it if you want."

After a line of puzzled looks from everyone who looked at the parchments, it got to Alistair. He read them. It was a list of weird things and several work orders to obtain and combine them. "Some of these are dated about three years ago … before the Chantry destruction … and some of these are recent. What are sela petrae and drakestone? And what does this formula make?" He handed them to Bethany who hadn't seen them yet.

"Good question," Cullen said between bites. "I found those hidden behind one of the drawers in Meredith's Tranquil assistant's desk yesterday. She's been missing since the Seekers showed up."

"Did the bastards take her for some reason?" Carver asked.

Cullen frowned. "I don't think so, but I don't know for certain. You'll need to ask your Seeker friends."

"So, Curly, you don't like 'em either?" Varric asked.

Cullen nodded toward Aveline. "The Guard Captain and I have been putting up with the chaos they've caused both in the city and at the Circle. We were almost finished clearing out the Gallows and shutting it down … all in preparation for the Chantry to use it until the real Chantry can be rebuilt. But, all that is on hold until they get what they want from the Champion. Alistair, you have a lot of Templar friends. All over. Not all of us have forgotten what you tried to do to stop the insanity here. Word has gotten out, too. Even in Cumberland and Val Royeaux, there are Templars who only want to keep everyone safe … mage or not. Don't be intimidated by these Seekers."

"That means more than you know, Cullen." Alistair rubbed his face. "What would they want with Meredith's Tranquil assistant? Unless Velanna knew about all of Meredith's excesses and ..."

Devon stepped into the room. His face was very, very red. "Did you say, 'Velanna'? Was this Velanna a Dalish elf?" he asked Cullen through clenched teeth.

Cullen looked surprised and a little afraid. "What are you doing here?!" When all Devon did was glare in response, Cullen replied, "She was."

Devon stormed over to Cullen and drew him up out of his chair. Cullen just dropped his cookie, but didn't draw a weapon. "You made a Grey Warden Tranquil?!"

Cullen's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider. "She was a …?! She never told us that, Devon! I swear!"

Alistair got up and walked over to the angry Warden, wisely not touching him. "How do you know Velanna, Devon?"

It took a very long group of minutes for Devon to cool down enough to release Cullen in disgust and begin pacing. "She was a Dalish who lost her sister to the Architect … much like the Wardens lost Utha … the Architect convinced her to join him somehow … even before we got to face him to kill him." He paced a bit more. "Once she finally realized that we weren't her enemies, Velanna joined the wardens so she could continue to hunt for her sister and kill darkspawn. After we killed the Architect, she disappeared." He pounded his fist on the table next to Cullen. "So, you bastards rounded her up and threw a brand on her forehead … after everything she'd gone through!"

"Poor woman," Bethany said quietly.

"That wasn't all there was to her story," Devon continued in a much more subdued tone. "We had to investigate a place called the Black Marsh to look for a missing Warden named Kristof. There were tears in the Veil all over the marsh. Just as we found the dead body of Kristof, the Architect used one of his minions to draw us through into the Fade. He thought he was so clever, but the place we ended up was as much the darkspawn's undoing as it was the demon master who possessed the Black Marsh's noble."

"Maker, I hate the Fade," Alistair said quietly as he went back to his chair. "Yeah, I know. Strange thing for a mage to say."

"No, it's not," Bethany said quietly.

"While in the Fade, we befriended a Spirit of Justice who was incensed at how the innocent of the Black Marsh were being misused by the evil creature in charge of the area. Obviously, we fought our way out of the Fade. When we regained consciousness, back in the present, we found out the spirit had been drawn out with us. He inhabited the dead body of Kristof. We called him Justice, but he was still a Warden and he helped us rid Thedas of the Architect."

"And you didn't tell the Chantry?!" Cullen asked. "We could have taken care of it, Devon, but … no, you mighty Grey Wardens think you are above the Maker's Law! The Maker had to send Velanna to us. To set the record straight, she walked into the Gallows and surrendered!"

Devon glared at the Templar and took a step toward him, but then, just took a deep breath and continued, "Maybe we should have, but I'm not finished. The one thing Justice could not do was keep the body of Kristof from decaying. Velanna told me she was going to allow Justice to inhabit her body. We all tried to talk her out of it, but she disappeared." Devon sat on the floor by the front entrance to the room. "And, now I learn you even took her emotions away just because she came to you for help … bastards."

Alistair threw Bethany an alarmed look before he asked, "Wait … you're saying that Velanna was possessed by a spirit before the Templars made her Tranquil?"

"There's a chance she was never Tranquil, Cullen," Bethany said as she walked out of the room.

Cullen threw a confused look toward Alistair. "I performed the ritual myself, Hawke. There was no error."

While Bethany went downstairs … Alistair assumed to get her copies of the Seeker book … he took a longer look at the list that Cullen had brought with him. He looked at Cullen and said, "Meredith's signature is on the recent one, Cullen. She's long dead."

The Templar drew his eyebrows together and walked over to where Alistair was sitting. He looked at the work order over Alistair's shoulder. "Dear Maker," he whispered. "It's close, the line under the 'M' is wavy. Meredith always made an absolutely straight line. She called it her notice to the world that the Maker's Law was the straight path to the Maker's Side."

Alistair took a deep breath. "Okay … damn. What does Velanna or Justice want to do with this stuff? She obviously knew if she had to procure it for Meredith three years ago." He looked at Varric. "Time to invite Cassandra and Leliana to the party."

"Not looking forward to this," Devon mumbled and then added with a slight smirk, "Maybe I should be."

"Want 'em to come over right now or in a little while?" Varric asked.

Alistair just grinned. "Hmm, it's about lunch time … right this minute, Varric. If you don't mind."

Varric just laughed and walked out.

"I'd like to stay, Hawke, if that's all right," Cullen said.

"Of course, it's all right! You just brought us proof that a Tranquil forged a requisition for … something … that she had to find for Meredith before. We need to find out what these ingredients do and we need to find out if she forged it for herself or someone else." Alistair said.

Bethany came back with the copy of the Templar manual: a sheaf of parchments held together with three straps of leather through holes in the edge. She opened it and handed the open pages to Cullen. "That's how to reverse Tranquility, Cullen. If Velanna already was possessed by a spirit … maybe …" She shrugged. "That's a copy." She turned to Alistair. "Time to give Cassandra the real thing?"

Alistair shook his head. "Not yet. Let's see how this goes. Can you find out what these ingredients do, Beth? If Javaris is in town … and these ingredients create an explosion … it looks like we've found some evidence that Meredith bought them before the Chantry exploded."

Isabela walked up and looked at the receipt. "Write these down for me. I need to talk to that nug-bait Javaris anyway. He knows about stuff like explosives, remember? I'll ask him and get right back here."

Alistair just smiled around the table. "Nice to have a lady with so many connections." Then, he kissed her hand.

"Hey, hey, now, sweet thing …" she said while laughing. Bethany handed her a small piece of parchment and Isabela turned to walk out. "Not in front of the children," she added with a wink as Cassandra and Leliana walked in.

Alistair stood. "What have you done with Meredith's assistant? A Dalish Tranquil named Velanna?"

"Wha … I've never talked to her. Is she still here?" Cassandra turned toward Leliana who looked like she knew more about it.

"Yes, Leliana, what do you know about her disappearance?" Devon asked.

Leliana had missed Devon being there. That surprised Alistair. All he said was, "Wow, must be pretty disturbing for Nightingale to miss Devon just sitting there."

"What are you doing here?" Leliana asked Devon.

"Do I really have to say that I asked a question first?" Devon had a pretty good scowl going as he stood up.

Leliana glanced at Cassandra. "She came to see me since I'd come here before as Sister Nightingale. She said that she spent the last three years doing drudge work for you, Cullen, and she wanted more interesting work."

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "I guess that pretty much confirms she was no longer Tranquil … since drudge work is usually what they end up with."

Cullen said. "Velanna certainly never mentioned it to me."

"So … what did you do with her?" Devon leaned on the table.

Cassandra added, "And, why didn't you tell me?"

Leliana huffed and looked at Cassandra. "You were busy interrogating Varric, Cassandra. I didn't think it was more important than you keeping your thoughts on getting the Champion back here." Then, she looked at a Devon who looked like he was about to pounce. "I sent her to Val Royeaux to work with Most Holy."

At that moment, Isabela ran in with Javaris in tow. "Hawke! These are ingredients to some kind of explosive formula!"

Javaris tried to catch his breath. "Velanna came to me and asked if I could procure those ingredients for her again. I did. The first time I figured they were some kind of mage torture drug since the Knight-Commander wanted 'em. I just found out what they could do." He gave a wide grin. "It's twice as powerful as that puny Qunari black powder. I'm going to make a fortune …" He stopped when Cassandra pulled her sword and held it to Jarvaris' chest.

"YOU?! You blew up the Chantry here to what? Test it out?" Cassandra yelled.

Javaris' arms couldn't have gotten any higher. "NO! I … I … I didn't even know what it could do until a few weeks ago when that Tranquil came back for more and shared the formula with me! Meredith picked up the delivery three years ago herself the day before … so, she blew up the Chantry! Ancestors know why! I didn't even put the two together until I got that formula! I was going to sell the formula to the Carta. There's a huge market for explosives in non-Qunari lands! Justified uses … clearing fields, getting ore or rock out of a quarry … stuff like that!"

Cassandra stepped closer. "Are you trying to tell me a Tranquil decided to blow something else up and was buying explosives?!"

"She probably wasn't really Tranquil," Cullen said. He turned to Alistair. "Can I show her the book?"

At Alistair's nod, Cullen shoved the copy of the Seeker book toward Leliana while Cassandra continued to cover Javaris. "Did she take ship already, Leliana?" Cullen asked.

"I doubt she stayed on a ship, Cullen. Most Dalish know shapeshifting. She likely flew to Val Royeaux once the ship passed the chains," Alistair stood and paced. "Leliana should have known that," he added with a scowl.

"She was Tranquil, Alistair!" Leliana looked at Cullen. "I thought." She looked at the book, read the marked passages and sat down. "Dear Maker, what have I done," she said quietly.

"Leliana?!" Cassandra asked.

"Yes, she left over a week ago." Leliana looked at Bethany and Alistair. "She's well on the way by now."

Alistair looked at Bethany. "We need to go now, Bethany," he said as he motioned to the door. "Isabela, can you follow with everyone on your ship?"

Isabela scowled around the table. "Sure, just one condition … anyone who causes trouble gets thrown overboard. But, it'll take me a several hours to round up my crew."

"I'll get one of our fastest birds to take a short message that you're on the way, Alistair," Leliana said. "I know you're going to fly there, too, but my birds don't stop to talk along the way."

"Then, Leliana and I will take one of the Seeker ships," Cassandra said as she sheathed her sword. She grabbed Javaris' collar. "You are coming with us!"

"But … but …" Javaris started to argue, but Cassandra's flushed angry face shut him up.

"I want to take that book with us, too, Champion," Cassandra demanded.

Alistair nodded to Bethany who ran into the kitchen where she'd dropped off the real book before handing the copy to Cassandra. "This is the real book, Cassandra," Alistair said as Bethany handed her the book and took back the copy. "It should belong to you. You may be one of the last Seekers left." There was more than a little sympathy in Alistair's look. He knew first-hand how hard it was to have your world wrenched and bent through no fault of one's own. "With the way things seem to be changing, I can see the value in strong Seeker order willing to work with the mages. It will be up to you if you want to continue the Order."

Cassandra didn't say anything … only sighed and nodded. She seemed to realize that what Alistair said was likely true.

"We'll continue this conversation once Bethany and I have reached Val Royeaux and scouted around a bit. That was a good idea, Leliana. We'll stop in the ports along the way to get news." Alistair gave Isabela a quick kiss. "I know your route, love. Hopefully, we can meet the ship before you get to the Orlesian capital."

Alistair grabbed the invoices and the book copy before he and Bethany ran upstairs to fill Leandra in and to pack a few things in their magic packs that shift with them. Leandra added some food and water skins.

While previously waiting in the cave, Alistair and Bethany studied a nest of eagles and learned their form. Not as fast as a swift, but higher on the food chain and less likely to attract predators. Of course, Bethany learned it first, but Alistair had a lot of time on his hands recently.

Then, they both went to the roof, shifted into eagles and headed west, praying to the Maker that they would be in time to stop whatever Velanna or Justice had in mind.

…

AN: Thanks to benjammindeth for your Story Alert! Thanks for the favorite and follow, peroli ryu! (Don't know why your name didn't make it to the upload last chapter. I took out the period this time just in case. So sorry! Okay, that was another thing that kept me from posting for a while … sometimes, the uploads didn't work. hehe)

Also, thanks to Sironblood1 for mentioning in a review of What Could Go Wrong? that the DA team had considered Velanna as the repository of Justice. I think it works well. :D

Judy, thanks for your ongoing encouragement! Waaaaaay long time ago, you sent a review saying that you re-read What Have We Here and said that you would love to see more. Hence, why that sequel will be coming up … sometime … for you! :)