II
-Honor Lost-
.x.
"Your role would change little if you accepted the Qun."
-Ketojan
.x.
For seven years, Hawke had been in pursuit of Anders, a former friend driven mad by the injustices against his mage-kin and the presence of a demon tormented with the desire for vengeance housed within him. For seven years she had chased him across the whole of Thedas, from nation to nation and city to city. Inevitably, after months of their intricate cat-and-mouse game, she would manage to close the distance between them and they would clash; every time this happened she bore further witness to the changes his inner torture had wrought upon him. Gone was the charming, affable mage she'd once known—in his place was a driven and relentless monster, an abomination that no longer had any qualms over meting out death and punishment however he saw fit.
Seven years ago Anders had chosen to destroy Kirkwall's Chantry to fuel a revolution. Distracted by the resulting chaos and devastation and the explosive schism between Kirkwall's Templars and Circle mages, Hawke had let Anders escape with his life. It was only later, after both Orsino and Meredith had been slain and the citizens of Kirkwall reeled in hapless terror from the sundering of their city, that she was forced to realize she had grievously erred by letting Anders live. Fenris had been livid—though he'd remained with her and the others throughout the final battles, he departed immediately after, but not before claiming that Hawke was as much to blame for this catastrophe as Anders had been. He had not been wrong. His final words to her on that day were a promise of a threat—should they meet again, it would only be in battle. In their time together, both as lovers and as comrades, he had struggled to accept that she herself was a mage. It had been her final decision to let Anders live that had for Fenris driven home the realization that she was the same as every other magic-user he had ever known and been subjugated to.
Wracked by guilt and shame, Hawke had tried her best to assist Aveline and Cullen in rebuilding the city and reestablishing a sense of order upon its citizens. The feelings she'd harbored for Fenris had ran even deeper than she'd realized, despite the somewhat turbulent nature of their relationship. His departure had wounded her almost as deeply as the realization of her accountability in Anders' plot had. When word began to drift to the city from the villages lining the eastern coast of the Free Marches of an apostate mage rousing any he could to join his cause—and punishing any who openly opposed him—Hawke made another choice of grave significance. Letting Anders live had been a mistake—Kirkwall was only one city with only one Circle. He and the demon within him would not be sated until the entirety of Thedas' mages were liberated from what he viewed as the heavy-handed tyranny of the Templars. His crusade was one that could not be completed without remarkable violence and so it was that Hawke chose to forsake her birthright, her standing as Champion of the city, and most the relationships she had spent so long forging in order to seek out Anders and right the terrible wrong she had made.
She had managed over the course of the years, either by luck or by some kind of divine intervention, to avoid encountering Fenris. Once hailed as a wolf by the Witch of the Wilds, the former elf slave's parting words to Hawke had been spoken with an inarguable iron certainty. Hawke had always known that it had only been a matter of time before their paths would again cross, and knew with unshakable clarity that when that day came, one would be forced to kill the other. Now faced with that prospect, however, she found herself unaccountably afraid. Her quest to bring Anders to justice for his crime and her resulting sojourns had thrown her into conflict with a great many dangerous creatures; she had survived and through surviving, been able to hone her skills considerably. She was more powerful and more learned than she had been years ago, more savvy and far more cautious. It stood to reason that she was now more than a match for the white wolf, but upon hearing Aveline's words of Fenris' arrival in the city, she found herself mired firmly beneath an unshakable shroud of apprehension and dread.
Her rushed strides since leaving the Keep had brought her to the Hightown Bazaar, and she noted distractedly as she crossed the open courtyard that the looming threat of the Qunari had frightened all the merchants into remaining places more secure. The area was completely devoid of any presence, and its emptiness lent credence to her already existing fears that Fenris would find her with ease. She crossed beneath the covered stone archway that overlooked the ocean, swiftly amending her plans as she did so. She needed to return to the mansion and secure her supplies and slip away from the city under the cover of darkness this very night—
She heard the footsteps a mere second before she sensed the presence behind her; with a silent curse she spun around, hands flying to her staff and sweeping it out before her in a defensive stance. She had expected to find herself faced with Fenris—indeed, the more paranoid part of her had thought even to see Anders—and thus she was somewhat astonished to find herself facing neither elf nor mage, but one of the Qunari Karasaad instead.
The Qunari, already a forbidding figure and made more so by Hawke's disquieted state, held both hands outstretched and open before him to show her he was weaponless. "I mean you no harm, Bas'Sarrebas."
Hawke was familiar with the word, a term used to describe mages outside the Qun. Still, his statement did little to assuage her confusion and so she did not lower her staff, demanding instead, "What do you want?"
"The Arishok would speak with you further."
Shaking her head, she backed a step. "The Arishok and I have nothing to discuss." Still shaken by his appearance—and that fact that she'd been so distracted that she hadn't noticed—she retreated another two steps. Within her, fine strands of anxiety had unfurled and were humming with urgent intensity. Fenris was in the city, and the chances were better than good that he knew she was present as well. She did not want a confrontation with him, not now, not ever. It was imperative that she make her escape from the city as soon as she possibly could. The fact that the Qunari leader wanted to speak with her only added to her quiet desperation. With those dire thoughts in mind, she decisively turned her back on the Karasaad and resumed again her swift pace in the direction of the mansion.
But the Qunari was not so easily dismissed. He knifed in front of her, his long strides having allowed him to catch up with her quickly. The solid barrier of his bulk brought her to another halt and this time when she brought her staff out before her, it was with the intent to use it.
"Move, please." she told him. "I've no quarrel with you but I cannot be delayed."
He said nothing and did not need to. Hawke knew that he would die to carry out the order of his Arishok, even an order as mundane as this. She had no wish to combat him and even less desire to kill him, but in order to make good her escape her options were few. And so, with her staff gripped tightly in her good hand, she curled the remaining fingers on the other and began to summon to life within their cradle the elemental fire she was able to call at will.
"Parshaara!"
The voice came from behind Hawke; recognizing it, she closed her eyes in dismay. The fire conjured within the palm of her maimed hand dissipated, leaving behind small, trailing tendrils of smoke as she lowered her staff and turned slowly to face the speaker.
The Arishok drew to a halt a few feet from her; such was his stature that even from that distance she found herself craning her head back in order to see his face. The other Karasaad stood at his left shoulder; the one that had intercepted Hawke remained in place behind her. Acutely aware that she was being flanked and that should she need to make a sudden escape it would be a difficult undertaking, she resolutely squared her jaw and waited wordlessly to see what would be said.
"The fate of those that threaten one of the Qun should be known to you, Hawke. If you were only bas, your blood would now stain the stones of this street."
She had known, of course. Trying to convey her urgency and the reason behind her actions would, however, be futile, and so she simply said, "He wouldn't let me pass."
"And you would have attacked Karasaad for his minor trespass and by doing so, ignited the battle you have tried to convince me to abandon?"
He spoke the truth, she knew. Harming the Qunari under the tenuous truce established by their sending a delegation—even if it was just pretense—was tantamount to declaring war. She hadn't been thinking of that, though—she'd been focused solely on the issue of Fenris and the dire promise he'd made all those years ago. It shook her that she had come so close to openly attacking the Karasaad, shook her even more that her current harried state of mind had rendered her oblivious to the consequences of that action. Feeling suddenly wearied by the convoluted, tangled web of circumstances she found herself trapped within, she ignored his question and instead asked, "There's something you wish to discuss?"
For a long moment the Arishok stared at her, unblinking. She met his gaze and held it only with supreme effort of will, so deeply perceptive was his regard.
"I find you greatly changed, Hawke."
She felt a bubble of wild laughter rising in her throat at his statement and choked it back; this was not the time for an inane reaction borne of skittish nerves. "Time," she told him, "has a way of changing people." Except you, she added silently. In the full light of day, his body no longer hidden by the deceitful shifting of shadows, she could see that time had not altered the Arishok at all. Everything about his appearance, from the tooled dark leathers that encompassed the lower half of his body to the ridged crimson pauldrons that armored his shoulders, the length and curve of the impressive coronal of his horns and the thick bronze rings that encircled them, the fierce, vivid markings that adorned the broad, naked expanse of his chest—all of it was as Hawke remembered. It was disquieting in a way she could not possibly explain, to know that the Arishok had so completely escaped the ravages of the years that she had not been adept enough to avoid.
"Aban aqun. You were once basalit-an, the only one worthy of respect to be found in this festering sore of a city. Time ..." here he paused, adding only the slightest of emphasis to the word, an indication that her previous reply had displeased him in some way. "Has it stolen from you your merit as completely as it has your fingers?"
Her head snapped back indignantly at those words; though he hadn't raised his voice or changed his tone, the insult was apparent and sharply biting. Her brows descended as her eyes narrowed; fingers tightening reflexively around the haft of her staff, she suddenly found her apprehension and fear ebbing under the sudden rush of anger. "I am still human, Arishok. I cannot help that, nor what I've become."
"Untruth. Your humanity is unfortunate, but can be overlooked—your previous deeds have proven that it is so. It is what you are now that demands an accounting. Are you still basalit-an, Hawke?"
She didn't answer immediately; to her utmost shame she found she could not hold his gaze any longer. That the Arishok could see and understand so fully all that she had chosen to cast aside and forget was unnerving in the most potent of ways. Long gone was the ever-smoldering fire that had been her conviction, that which had driven her to protect Kirkwall and its citizens no matter how dangerous the threat. Gone too was the woman who had, faced with the prospect of outright war between the Qunari and the city, made the terrible decision to seek peace at the cost of allowing the Arishok to return to Par Vollen with Isabela, knowing all the while that her friend would be subject to the harsh laws of the Qun for what she had done. Anders was now Hawke's purpose; in letting him live, in being too blind to see his real intent she had been to blame for the destruction of the chantry and the deaths of those within as well as the deaths that had followed in the explosion of conflict between Templar and mage.
She did not hope to enlighten the Arishok to her current cause; such a focused vendetta was something that under the Qun would be seen as a weakness. Eyes fixing again on the austere features of the Qunari leader, she said simply, "I am Hawke. That's all I've ever been."
"Indeed." There was another weighted pause as he considered her, his eyes beneath his prominent brow unrelenting. When he continued, something in his voice had changed, becoming grimmer still. "Kirkwall will fall before us. You know this. Once, you would have died yourself to prevent such a thing from being so. Now it seems you would flee. Tell me, Hawke—"
She did then something very few others had ever been foolish enough to attempt. She lifted a hand and spoke, her voice evenly cutting through his own. "Then is not now, Arishok. My life—my purpose—is no longer decided by the fate of those who inhabit these city walls. It's not as I would wish it, but I couldn't have known …" She stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the severity of his expression in light of her impulsive, ill-timed interruption. "I arrived here with the intent of only remaining a day or two. Even had your ships not appeared on the horizon, I would have left. I must leave. The fate of Kirkwall is no longer my concern."
The Karasaad standing next to the Arishok shifted his weight, turning his head as he scanned the perimeter of the bazaar, reminding Hawke with alarming clarity that she was effectively alone here, surrounded by three Qunari of more than impressive presence. The Arishok himself remained still, head slightly tilted now as he stared still at the human before him, his perpetual frown deepening as he spoke. "In any other, I would call this cowardice."
"Call it what you must," she said tiredly, leaning a little on her staff and inwardly willing one of the city guard patrols to appear, willing Aveline to appear, willing even Fenris to appear and put an end to this confrontation that, she was certain, would come to a less than pleasant conclusion.
She had expected further remarks about the degradation of her character, and thus was surprised when the next words from the Arishok came in the form of a question. "What manner of creature do you pursue to have devoted yourself so completely?"
For the span of a heartbeat, she debated not answering. She debated lying as well, but knew the Arishok had an almost preternatural ability to ferret out a lie. In the past, her refusal to tell him anything but the truth had earned from him a modicum of respect. She replied reluctantly, "A mage."
She could not be certain, so invariable were his features, but it seemed that one of his eyebrows had lifted a miniscule amount. "Surely not a mere apostate."
"No," she said. "He's no apostate, not any longer."
"Maleficarum, then." When she nodded an affirmation, he went on, "This has not been a short chase."
"Years," she reticently agreed, and added silently, it's been far too long.
"An obsession, Hawke."
She startled herself by replying with, "Yes." She shook her head, discomfited by how unthinkingly she had uttered that response. Such was the authority of his gaze that she found herself unwillingly saying more, "It doesn't matter any longer. He was a traitor. He lives because I hesitated to take his life, and in doing so I condemned a great many to death. He must be brought to justice for what he's done. He must be held accountable." She stopped speaking abruptly, appalled and astonished at how the admission of her greatest shame had so easily tumbled forth from her mouth.
"An admirable stance, but you are no arbiter."
"I have to be. There are no others."
"It is for your Templars to finish."
"No." She shook her head again, the movement a little wild as she realized that it was as she had feared—there was no convincing the Arishok to simply let her go on her way, to continue with the hunt that had become her very existence. Her voice became strident under the force of her distress. "This one isn't like other maleficars. He is different, dangerously so. He is also an abomination—he can shift from human to demonic form at will. Many Templars have tried their hand against him and none have lived to speak of it."
"Thus the Qun decrees that mages be bound and controlled. The Saarebas are not permitted to submit to the demons of the Fade and should they succumb to weakness, their Arvaraad are there to ensure the threat of their turning is not fully realized. The mages of Thedas would greatly benefit from such handling."
"I am a mage," she reminded him uneasily, and then found herself wishing then that she had kept her mouth shut; once again the Arishok's eyes became keen and unwavering, boring mercilessly into her own. He said in a voice that had grown even more toneless than usual, "Yes."
She knew then what was intended, the realization uncoiling in chilling, insidious tendrils within her. The Arishok began to approach, closing the short distance between them with only three strides. Hawke took two quick steps back and halted as she recalled the Karasaad behind her. She was not given more time to react; the Arishok stopped half an arm's length from her, the other Karasaad following at his shoulder.
Hawke's hand gripped the staff so tightly her fingers ached. This close, she was forced to crane her head back in order to see the Arishok's face. She hated how small such a thing made her feel, how harmless and insignificant his physical being made her seem. Every part of her body was afire with tension; the time for negotiation had, she knew, long since passed. Despite the inner voices screaming at her to lash out with her intrinsic elemental power, despite the cries of her instincts to whirl about and flee, she remained absolutely still as the Arishok began to speak once more.
"Your role would change little should you submit to the Qun."
"My role would be the same as that of the Saarebas. I would," she said with grim, unwavering honesty, "rather die than spend my life gagged and chained as they are."
There was a pause before he responded. "It is not certain whether the Tamassran would decide that path for you."
Hawke's smile was mirthless and fleeting. "But it is a possibility, yes?" His silence was all the answer she needed. She shook her head once more. "The Qun would be the death of me, Arishok."
"The Qun would bring order and direction. Within it you would find all the purposes of your life made clear, the road to attaining them one of enlightenment found through duty. No longer would the afflictions of your heritage dog you. There would be an end to the incessant chaos that is by nature the essence of being human."
"Life outside the Qun has never seemed that hopeless to me."
"No?" The Arishok glanced down at her maimed hand. "This … quest you pursue—you have lost to it years of your life. It has plainly taken even more than that from you. Tell me, Hawke, are the wounds you have sustained an indication that your chase draws to an end? You know it is not so. You are no closer to defeating the maleficar than you were when you started. The emotions that fuel all humans have driven you to engage in a hopeless cycle that will wear away at you until you have destroyed yourself. Such is the curse of humanity. I have observed it in those years I spent in this city. Your kind is a flock without a shepherd, doomed to harm themselves simply because they are not strong enough to adhere to the demands of a greater creed."
"And you would save us from ourselves by forcing the Qun upon us? Deny and die, you once told me—how does slaughtering those that will not convert differ any from what you see as our chosen self-destructive fates?"
"You are not capable of understanding. Not yet."
"I never will be, Arishok." She corrected. "I am not for the Qun." Aware that the discussion was drawing to a close and knowing that when the time for words had passed there was a great possibility she would be fighting for her life, she added quickly, "Nor is this city. I entreat you again, leave Kirkwall. By now, her allies will have been alerted. They will be marching here as we speak."
"This city's allies," The Arishok replied, "will not know of our arrival."
In the stark, stricken silence that followed, Hawke stared at him with a confused frown. Comprehension dawned on her a second later, a swift and terrible knowledge that drove her another step back to jostle the Karasaad standing there. Instantly she righted herself, twisting away as she did so, gaining space to stand freely. The Karasaad had made an inclination to follow; with a quick gesture of one hand, the Arishok wordlessly commanded him to remain where he was.
"You've already sent troops ashore." She said then into the foreboding stillness that had fallen, her voice thick with dismay as she stood facing the three Qunari. "Further up the coast, before you were ever sighted here."
The Arishok inclined his head in acknowledgment of her words. "Several companies were sent aground. They will have prevented the messengers from reaching the other cities. There is no aid coming to Kirkwall."
The occurrence of thought that came to her then—I must warn Aveline!—was evident as a mercurial shifting of her expression. She knew the Arishok would recognize it immediately; as she cast one frantic glance about the bazaar and discovered it still empty of any but herself and the Qunari, she inhaled deeply and steeled herself for what was to come next.
The Arishok spoke sharply, something she could not understand, and then both the Karasaad were rushing for her. Both hands now wrapped about the slender haft of her staff, Hawke waited until they were within touching distance before bringing the butt of her weapon down hard on the cobblestones beneath her feet. A burst of energy erupted, a pulse of rippling air that flowed outwards with tremendous force. Being so close to the origins of the shock-wave, both the Karasaad were caught and flung backwards, landing hard on the street some several feet away. The Arishok, however, was merely staggered and recovered swiftly enough to make Hawke whisper a curse in agitated frustration.
Before the Karasaad had regained their feet, Hawke was casting again. Staff now held securely in one hand, she called to life within the palm of the other elemental fire. With deft movements she gathered the flames into a loose, swirling orb. The Arishok began to approach and she let fly the fireball, aiming not for the Qunari but for the ground at his feet. Her aim was unerring, but even as the stones of the street erupted beneath the power of her attack, the Arishok was moving undeterred through the wild flames.
Hawke began to backpedal, continuing to fling fire even as she retreated. The flames did not abate after they had struck the ground; instead they burned high and bright, sustained by her will. Her seemingly aimless throws had managed to confine both the Karasaad within a maze of fire, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they navigated their way out of it. The Arishok was not as susceptible to her magic, steadily advancing on her even as she fell back, batting away the fiery projectiles if they got too close.
He rushed her suddenly, a short, explosive flaring of speed that closed the gap between them. Hawke uttered a breathless cry as he reached for her; gripping the staff in both hands she struck at his arm, channeling power down the length of ebony wood. There was a blinding flash at the point of contact between weapon and Qunari—the Arishok grunted and stumbled back a step. As he gathered himself and lunged for her once more, she swept the serpent-headed tip of her staff along the ground in a curving arc while summoning from within her another elemental power. Jagged, man-sized shards of ice erupted from the stones of the street, creating a barrier between her and the Qunari leader.
The air around the ice wall steamed. From across the magical formation the Arishok regarded her, eyes narrowed, wearing an expression of such fierce and focused intent that she unconsciously backed a step. From beyond his shoulder she caught sight of one of the Karasaad quickly approaching, having freed himself from the labyrinthine confines of her fire, and she knew that the ice would not hold them for long.
"This will conclude another time, Hawke." The Arishok promised as she whirled about.
She hazarded a glance back and saw that he was still unmoving and that his Karasaad was skirting around the ice. Without giving a reply—she was unable to think of one—she turned back around and with a sweep of her hand, incited to life a wall of shifting flame to serve as another barricade with which to cover her escape. Momentarily satisfied—the fire would keep the Karasaad at bay for certain—she twisted about and raced to the far end of the courtyard. A large metal disk lay there secure within the ground, a cover to an underground passageway that she had been very familiar with during her time as a city-dweller. She dropped to her knees, let fall the staff, and threaded her fingers through the holes of the disk. A swift look back in the direction she'd come revealed the Karasaad and the Arishok had breached the giant ice crystals; the Karasaad were halted now at the fire wall, unable to cross while behind them their leader quickly approached. The Qunari leader would, she knew with some fear, be able to cross the flaming barrier with ease.
Her sense of urgency renewed, Hawke tensed and pulled up hard, managing to drag the metal cover out of its indentation and slide it almost entirely free of the darkened aperture. Quickly taking up her staff, crouched at the edge of the gaping maw that was the entry into the undercity, she glanced again in the direction of her pursuers. As she'd predicted, the Arishok had crossed through the flames unscathed and was now drawing quickly and steadily nearer. Without further hesitation, Hawke dropped through the hole, falling only a few feet and landing lightly. Without bothering to let her eyes adjust to the dimmed interior of the tunnel, she began to race, one hand in contact with the pitted wall as she did so as to try and maintain some sense of direction. The tunnels beneath Kirkwall were no less than a maze, one that Hawke had known almost by heart at one point. Drawing on memories from long ago she was able to navigate through several tight and serpentine curves, running from one tunnel into another and then swiftly retracing her steps to branch off into another corridor. Instinctively, she moved towards the paths she knew would take her deeper underground, the steady decline of her path granting her a sense of security that she took some relief in, though she knew it may play her false. For how long she fled she could not be certain, and she came to a ragged halt only when the muscles in her legs began to cramp in protest from her harsh flight and her lungs burned with exertion.
Falling back against the dirty stone wall of the tunnel, she closed her eyes and attempted to quiet her breathing. Over the racing thunder of her heart she strained to make out any sound of pursuit; after a minute of no such indication, she pushed away from the wall, leaned hard on her staff, and began to walk. Though her recollections of these passages was somewhat dimmed, she had a vague notion of where she was and where she must go from here to gain entry to the northern part of Hightown. All thoughts of fleeing the city and of Fenris had gone, having been completely chased from her by the Arishok's reveal. Aveline and Cullen must be warned that their riders had been intercepted by the Qunari and that in all likelihood, none of the other cities of the Free Marches knew of their plight. Whether this knowledge could save the city, Hawke was not optimistic, but she still had to make the attempt.
It was with great trepidation and worry that she proceeded further into the undercity.
.x.