The Chantry
Apparently raising up an Inquisition wasn't as easy as simply declaring its existence. There were logistics I had no notion of, and these took days to even begin sorting through. Cassandra and Leliana very visibly met with me daily, making a show of keeping me up-to-date on how things were proceeding, ensuring that Haven saw me as part of the leadership. But nothing they told me actually involved me or anything I was capable of doing for them, and so it was clear that these meetings were merely a performance.
I spent my time learning Haven and its immediate environs. Had I been a hunter, or capable of hunting, I likely would have gone out and kept myself both occupied and useful, but I wasn't a hunter and it would have been easy for me to become lost even in the sparse woods that surrounded the little town. There were still no spirits of any merit in the area, and so I would have been very lost indeed.
Rather than risk the humiliation of having to be rescued an arrow's flight from the town's palisade, I stayed on the paths or worked my way carefully around the lake. I would have liked to set up camp out there, or I might have used the old healer's little hidden cabin - but, no, I understood perfectly well why I was kept in town. Until the failure of my vallaslin, I had been my Keeper's Second, and part of learning to be a Keeper was learning how to manage groups of people. My inclusion within Haven proper was an important symbol, no matter how trapped I felt by it.
Sometimes Varric hailed me before I managed to escape through Haven's gates in the morning, and then I joined him at the tavern or at the fire he liked to keep burning near the gate, where he could watch people coming and going. He asked me questions about my clan and told me about his life in Kirkwall, including his adventures with its Champion, whom even the Dalish had heard tales of. It was easy to talk to him, and I would have preferred his company to my own solitary rambles had he been willing to stir beyond Haven's walls. I felt claustrophobic within the town, though I couldn't even see the palisade the vast majority of the time. It made no sense, but it was still true, so I joined Varric when he called out to me, and went my own way the rest of the time.
I knew Solas also spent time outside Haven - I could often scent his magic on the wind as I roamed, but he made no attempts to seek me out. I came upon him once, likely by chance, though he could have avoided the meeting had he wished. Avoiding me was, after all, simple enough. We talked a little about the lack of spirits in the area and how dull the Fade was in their absence. I asked about the magic he practiced in the woods, and he told me it was mostly staff-work, more for physical strength than to improve or hone his casting. It was a mundane conversation, and yet reassuring in its way. If I avoided looking at him, I could almost pretend he was someone I didn't know and had no expectations of, and speak to him accordingly.
Eventually the fledgling Inquisition was on firm enough footing for its leaders to turn their eyes beyond Haven. Cassandra and I were sent first to the Hinterlands, in Ferelden, to meet with a Chantry mother, and then to make contact with a handful of potential agents after - if we could reach them. Solas and Varric came along as well. It wouldn't have been safe for me to travel alone with Cassandra, and we didn't have soldiers or scouts to spare.
We. I was already beginning to think of myself as part of them, even though I reflexively tried to resist, uncomfortable assimilating so easily into an organization explicitly founded by humans under the auspices of their god and his prophet.
At least I was given a horse for the journey, and didn't have to walk or, indeed, direct my mount at all - it followed Cassandra's without complaint, and within a day we had arrived at the Inquisition's forward camp in the region.
Though the area was, according to the scout leading operations there, a complete mess, Mother Giselle wasn't difficult to find. Reaching her was more problematic - we arrived at the Crossroads where the refugees had gathered in the midst of an attack by the templars attempting to occupy the area. Why they were attacking, no one could quite say - they killed indiscriminately, even striking down clerics who happened to be in the way. Templars weren't as easy for me to find as demons, but they had their own sort of presence against the Veil, equal parts foxfire and shadow. I concentrated on defensive spells, but helped pick off any who came too close.
After the battle, Solas left us to aid those who had been injured in the fight, and though my healing magic was limited, I would have felt better joining him. But no - Cassandra prodded me to take point, directing me toward the place where Inquisition soldiers were raising our banner, and reassuring me that a slow approach would merely seem stately.
Stately? In the aftermath of battle? I thought it would make me look both aloof and absurd, but perhaps it was a better alternative than stumbling up to them, looking like a drunkard.
The soldiers, in turn, directed us to Mother Giselle. She immediately reminded me of a Keeper, with her quiet words and gentle yet resolute wisdom. It was hard to remember she was a shemlen and that I owed her no deference - it would have been easy to relax into her authority, and the fact that she had sensible advice didn't make the impulse any easier to resist. She advised me to go to the Chantry clerics who had denounced me and the Inquisition. "Convince the remaining clerics you are no demon to be feared," she said. "They have heard only frightful tales of you. Give them something else to believe. You needn't convince them all. You just need some of them to doubt . Their power is their unified voice. Take that from them, and you receive the time you need."
Against my will, I admired her strategy. I had no desire to stand before shemlen priests and priestesses, my many flaws and failures laid bare while they tried to turn my only real redeeming quality - my magic - into something shameful. But she was right - entirely right. If the clerics looked at me, saw that I was a half-blind Dalish elf who hated being labelled the Herald of Andraste, some of them might begin to think that perhaps I was just trying to seal the Breach. Once they were divided, their power would be shattered. At the least, it was worth a try. They were already united - I couldn't make things much worse.
We stayed in the Hinterlands long enough to provide some aid for the refugees at the Crossroads - pushing back both templars and mages, closing a few rifts, and hunting game for meat to ensure no one starved and for skins to ensure no one froze. More was needed - a cessation of fighting between the mages and templars, for instance - but it could wait a little while. Once the situation at the Crossroads was stabilized, we rode straight for Val Royeaux.
It wasn't a short journey, even with the shortcut of a boat chartered in Jader - nearly a month one direction, and summer nearing its end by the time we arrived.
Val Royeaux was not the first human city I had seen, but it was the largest and most impressive. The streets alone, paved in intricate patterns I could almost piece together as I walked over them, told me that much. Even the Veil felt richer there. The spirits I saw silhouetted against it reflected emotions like greed, desire, pleasure, delight - sensuous appreciation of luxuries of every kind. Their shadows gave the Veil a sheen and depth reminiscent, somehow, of velvet. I schooled my face to indifference, though - I knew how shemlenaan reacted to Dalish elves who moved about their cities with candid uncertainty. Too often the only thing that kept us safe was the shemlen belief in our ruthlessness.
And perhaps it worked. No one approached us, though I heard audible gasps and snatches of outraged and terrified conversation following our little group through the streets. "Just a guess, Seeker, but I think they all know who we are," Varric commented.
"Or," I said before Cassandra could answer, "they see two elves bearing staves, one of them marked as Dalish, flanked by two heavily-armed guards."
"Or that," he allowed.
"Your skills of observation never fail to impress me, Varric," Cassandra spat.
A scout approached us, then, giving Varric no chance to respond, and offered an overview of the situation. Apparently our arrival hadn't gone unnoticed by the local templars.
We crossed the market, stood before the platform that had been erected for the Chantry clerics to speak from, and I listened impassively, though with mounting impatience, as I was denounced by these foolish shemlenaan: "The Maker would send no elf in our hour of need!"
A flash of anger got the better of me. "There is a hole in the sky and you're less concerned with that than with the race of the one who may be able to close it?" There was undeniable heat in my voice, but at least I managed to pitch it correctly. Though at any distance it sounded as though I was speaking at a conversational level, it was loud enough to carry across the square. A trick learned from Maela, and used often enough to be second nature in a crowd - luckily. Otherwise I didn't think I would have had the presence of mind to call on it. It was an increasingly difficult struggle not to snarl out what I wanted to say. "I don't much care who sent me, or who you believe sent me - what I care about is mending the Breach before it swallows the world."
"It's true!" Cassandra called out. "The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late!"
There was a brief moment of silence - of hesitation - but in that moment we all became aware of heavy footfalls caused by armor-clad boots ringing against stone. "It is already too late!" the Reverend Mother said triumphantly, gesturing toward the approaching templars.
I looked towards them, more because it was expected than because I was likely to discern anything of use - but then my hand found Cassandra's arm. "The leader - I don't know who he is, or was, but he isn't human," I hissed, my skin prickling with a chill as my anger froze solid.
"That is Lord Seeker Lucius," she replied, sounding confused, as the templars mounted the platform. "I know him well."
"No," I responded as patiently as I could manage, "that is a demon wearing Lord Seeker Lucius's face. Presumably. Provided he hasn't been a demon from the beginning." It was so clear to me - almost clearer than any of the other people in the square, including my companions, who stood near enough that I could read their faces. I had trouble believing that I was the only one who saw it for what it was.
"What?" she choked.
There was no time to respond as I heard the sound of a blow, and then a thump on wood, and the entire crowd, including Cassandra, gasped. "What is happening?" I whispered urgently.
"A templar just punched the Reverend Mother," Solas said from behind my shoulder, his voice holding a hint of disapproval.
On the platform, the demon masquerading as the Lord Seeker was speaking to someone: "Still yourself," it said, and I realized it addressed another templar, one who had been standing with the clerics. "She is beneath us."
"Pride and envy," I muttered to Cassandra. "They're so bound up together that I don't even know which came first - the bottomless desire or the inability to admit to feeling it."
"Maker preserve us," she breathed.
Perhaps the demon heard her. "You," it said contemptuously, drawing itself up as it picked her out of the crowd. "You are a disgrace! Creating a heretical movement, raising up a puppet as Andraste's prophet. You should be ashamed." Its burning eyes took in the rest of the crowd. "You should all be ashamed! The templars failed no one when they left the Chantry to purge the mages! You are the ones who have failed! You, who would leash our righteous swords with doubt and fear!"
Calm was easier to locate when faced with a demon. The fear that I knew lurked behind it only made me more determined - no one ever bested a demon by becoming trapped by emotion. "Or perhaps we would leash your swords with humility," I replied to it - challenged it - now composed enough to draw fully on what I knew of playing to a crowd.
Its eyes fell on me, and I stared back, my hand tightening slightly on my staff as I quietly readied a spell. I would not attack first - not with so many templars apparently beholden to the demon - but if it chose to attack me , it would find me no easy target. Behind me, I felt Solas weaving the outline of a spell of his own. I only hoped Varric and Cassandra were as quick to understand the danger we faced.
"The only destiny here that demands respect is mine," the demon claimed, pulling its gaze from mine, trying to pretend the interruption had never happened. "Templars! Val Royeaux is unworthy of our protection! We march!" With far more noise than was probably strictly necessary, they descended from the platform and began a pointed parade toward the gates of the city.
"Did you know him well?" I asked Cassandra in an undertone as we watched them go, the glitter of their armor an undulating wave in my blurred sight.
"He...took over the Seekers two years ago, after Lord Seeker Lambert's death," she replied, sounding slightly dazed. "He was always a decent man, never given to ambition and grandstanding."
"Then the demon is recent, it would seem," I mused.
"Is it a demon? Or possession?" she asked.
"Demon," I told her flatly. "And...that is an uncommon occurrence - for a demon to find its way here and take a mortal form without possessing a body."
"More than merely uncommon," Solas agreed quietly. "Such a feat requires an exceptional demon and, usually, cooperation from its target."
I turned to look at him. "Does it?"
"Usually," he repeated.
"The implications of that are...unpleasant," Cassandra said.
"All of this is unpleasant," I pointed out. "Perhaps now we ought to speak to the Reverend Mother?"
"Yes," Cassandra sighed in agreement.
She took my arm and led me up to the platform. I was surprised - usually in public she insisted that I move alone, to maintain the illusion that I could do so without undue difficulty. It was, perhaps, a measure of her distress that she chose the simplest route now.
"This victory must please you greatly, Seeker Cassandra," the Reverend Mother spat as we approached.
Beside me, Cassandra bristled. "We came here seeking only to speak with the mothers. This is not our doing, but yours."
"More importantly," I said, giving Cassandra a quelling glance, "there is no victory here. For anyone." My anger was still ice within me, chilled and sobered by the presence of a demon walking about the waking world with impunity. I should never have let anger get the better of me, even for a moment, and I was ashamed of my failure. Perhaps if I had held my temper better, Cassandra wouldn't have been indulging hers.
"We have been shown up by our own templars, in front of everyone!" the Reverend Mother lamented bitterly. "And my fellow clerics have scattered to the wind, along with their convictions." She sat up and managed to grasp one of my sleeves with her fingers. "Just tell me one thing: do you truly believe you are the Maker's chosen?"
I blinked down at her. "I am a Dalish elf," I pointed out, startled into complete honesty. "I know very little of your Maker or his prophet. If I believed I were guided by a god, I would likely choose one of those belonging to my own people."
"And do you believe it?" she persisted.
"No," I answered. "Our gods have not spoken to us in generations beyond counting - if, indeed, they were ever any less absent than your own Maker. It might be comforting to believe myself guided by someone or something that has a plan - but I fear the truth is likely to be much simpler and far more frightening. I am just a mortal, making decisions on the best information available to me, hoping I don't err so badly in making them that I bring about the end of the world."
She was close enough that I could make out - barely - her eyes searching my face. "That is...a more comforting answer than you may realize."
"Is it?" I asked. "Well, I wish you the joy of it, then." I looked at Cassandra. "Come, we should no doubt send a raven to Leliana and Josephine. They will want to know of this."
"You...handled that well," Cassandra told me thoughtfully as she led me away.
"Not...really," I replied with a sigh. "I should never have let my anger show, and I was lucky that all she ultimately wanted was honesty. Had she been arguing in bad faith, that might easily have gone poorly." Lessons in being a Keeper might give me a foundation to build on as I showed myself to people who had to be convinced I wasn't a power-hungry tyrant, but if I was going to succeed I was going to need - so many things. Better control over my temper. The ability to avoid saying what I thought merely because I was startled.
I...might even need to learn to lie. Conviction would only take me so far.
So far, what I knew was only showing me all the things I was doing wrong. It wasn't giving me much aid in correcting my mistakes.
This was going to be more complicated than I had ever envisioned.