Anyone else been waiting for Dorian to show up?
The Proper Use of "Magister"
We went to the tavern first thing. We had to - it was where we were meeting the magister who had, seemingly, erased Grand Enchanter Fiona's memory, and then tricked her into selling herself and all the mages who followed her into slavery. I didn't even need to be able to see Alexius's face to know he was a smarmy bastard and absolutely lying through his teeth. He had no intention of letting the mages work with us.
I wasn't certain what he did want, though, or how to handle him, and so I played along, played for time, hoped he would reveal something that one of us could identify and use against him. Until the meeting was cut short by his son, Felix, pretending to faint on me.
Outside, Varric muttered: "See? Magister taking over Redcliffe Castle? Told you these negotiations would be historic." He sounded vexed by his own foresight as we turned from the Gull and Lantern, making for the chantry. I was still a little shaky from Felix's means of slipping me the note that directed us there. He had come from the side, out of my direct line of sight and therefore out of my view entirely, and if it hadn't been a ruse he would have easily carried me to the ground with him. Just the thought of Alexius knowing how poor my sight was gave me chills. Every instinct I had screamed at me not to show any weakness in front of him.
On the very dim bright side, we had managed to recruit as agents for the Inquisition every one of the Tranquil who had fled with the Circle mages. I hoped Leliana and Josephine would be pleased by them.
There was a man - a mage - waiting for us in the chantry, killing the demons that periodically spawned from a rift. Like the rift we had already encountered just outside of Redcliffe, this one seemed to be warping time around itself. "Good!" the man greeted us. "You're finally here! Now help me close this thing, would you?"
In spite of the strange time-related effects, the rift wasn't any more difficult to close than the others, and in spite of not knowing the mage, one of my most important missions was closing rifts. I felt the strange man's eyes on me as I raised my hand and pulled the threads of energy keeping it open. The rift folded in on itself and disappeared. "Fascinating," the mage said. "How does that work, exactly?"
I paused thoughtfully, trying to decide how to explain it.
"You don't even know, do you? You just wiggle your fingers, and boom! Rift closes," he laughed.
Well, in that case perhaps I wouldn't explain it. "Who are you?" I asked instead.
He stepped closer to me, and I was finally able to make out a blurred facsimile of his features. His skin was a few shades lighter than my own, but his hair was roughly the same color. He had a mustache, and I didn't think hair assumed that shape naturally, so he had probably styled it. His features might have been handsome - for a human - but I couldn't see clearly enough to be certain. "Ah. Getting ahead of myself again, I see," he said. "Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?"
"Another Tevinter," Cassandra put in, her voice steely. "Be cautious with this one."
"Suspicious friends you have here," Dorian replied.
"Well," Varric said, "a magister did technically just invade Ferelden, so…"
"Yes, of course." Dorian sounded amused, as though the invasion of a foreign nation were a fine joke. "Magister Alexius was once my mentor, so my assistance should be valuable in repelling him - as I'm sure you can imagine."
"And what of Felix?" I asked.
"I'm sure he's on his way," Dorian assured me. "He was to give you the note, then meet us here after ditching his father."
"He pretended to faint on me, and no one seemed particularly surprised. Worried, but not surprised. Is there something wrong with him?" I asked.
"He's had some lingering illness for months," Dorian told me dismissively, and I couldn't tell whether or not he was lying. "Felix is an only child. Alexius sometimes turns into a mother hen around him."
"And are you a magister?" I asked.
"All right, let's say this once," he said, and I could hear the disdainful eye-roll in his voice. "I'm a mage from Tevinter, but not a member of the Magisterium. I know southerners use the terms interchangeably, but that only makes you sound like barbarians."
"I'm Dalish," I pointed out. "I am a barbarian."
His laughter rolled over me, rich and honeyed. "Very well, then, I suppose I give you leave to call me a magister if you really want to."
"No," I replied. "Even barbarians have better manners than to label people with unwanted titles." I wished civilized humans had the same standards of courtesy, come to think of it.
He laughed again. "Oh, I think I like you."
"Well...I think I would like you better if you told me what was going on," I retorted. "What is Alexius doing here and why are the rifts around Redcliffe twisting time?"
"Yes, well, isn't it odd how Alexius claimed the allegiance of the mage rebels out from under you?" Dorian asked. "As if by magic, yes? Which is exactly right. To reach Redcliffe before the Inquisition, Alexius distorted time itself."
"What?" Solas barked, his voice ringing out in quiet chantry.
"Wait," I said, stepping around Dorian and peering more closely at the place where the rift had been. "The Veil isn't... right here. It's not incredibly obvious, but if you look closely - if I look closely - it's oscillating at the wrong frequency. Too fast? Or - something else. Almost as though it's echoing itself."
"What does that mean?" Cassandra demanded.
"I don't know," I replied. "I've never seen anything like it. For the moment, at least, it doesn't seem to be altering its function, but who can say what would happen if it were warped further, or repeatedly?"
"I feel as though I've missed something," Dorian said.
I waved him away. "I can see the Veil - in a manner of speaking."
"Well, I can tell you what will happen with repeated warping," he said, accepting my explanation for the moment. "Reality itself begins to unravel. The magic Alexius is using is wildly unstable. Rifts like the one you saw here will begin appearing further and further from Redcliffe, spreading the damage."
"How is he doing it?" Solas demanded.
"I helped develop this magic," Dorian confessed, "but when I was still his apprentice, it was pure theory. Alexius could never get it to work. The hole in the sky appears to have changed something. What I don't understand is why he's doing it, though. He can see he is ripping time to shreds - and for what? A few hundred lackeys?"
"He didn't do it for them," a new voice said, and I flinched before realizing that Felix had finally joined us.
"Took you long enough," Dorian teased lightly. "Is he getting suspicious?"
"No," Felix replied, "but I shouldn't have played the illness card. I thought he'd be fussing over me all day." His head moved, and I presumed he had turned his attention to me. "My father's joined a cult," he explained. "Tevinter supremacists. They call themselves 'Venatori.' And I can tell you one thing: whatever he's done for them, he's done it to get to you."
"Really? A Dalish elf with the attention of a Tevinter magister? You should be flattered!" Varric announced sarcastically.
"Should I? Why does he care about me?" I wondered.
"They're obsessed with you," Felix answered, stepping a little closer to me, "but I don't know why. Perhaps because you survived the Temple of Sacred Ashes?"
"You can close the rifts," Dorian mused, "and none of this worked before the Breach. Maybe there's a connection. Or they see you as a threat?"
Felix was close enough now that I could identify it as a shudder when the chainmail he wore clinked softly. "If the Venatori are behind those rifts, or the Breach in the sky, they're even worse than I thought," he said.
I stared down at my marked hand, thinking.
"After all the trouble he's gone to in bringing you here, the polite thing to do would be to get Alexius something in return," Varric prompted me.
I smiled in his general direction, even though I couldn't see him. "Is it? I'm sorry, it seems my barbarian is showing."
"Send him a fruit basket," Dorian suggested. "Everyone loves those."
"I was thinking more along the lines of a contingent of soldiers from Ferelden," Varric said, "but to each their own."
"You know you're his target," Dorian pointed out, serious again as he returned his attention to me. "Expecting the trap is the first step in turning it to your advantage. I hope you manage to come up with something - I can't stay in Redcliffe. Alexius doesn't know I'm here, and I want to keep it that way for now. But whenever you're ready to deal with him, I want to be there. I'll be in touch." He brushed past me, heading for the back of the chantry, where there must have been another exit, but then paused and turned. "Felix? Try not to get yourself killed."
He didn't wait for an answer, and when Felix said, quietly, "There are worse things than dying, Dorian," I might have been the only one near enough to hear it.
None of us wanted to remain in Redcliffe after that, but it was Solas who took point, leading the way out of town with such determined ferocity that he nearly left me behind - until a sharp word from Cassandra pulled him up short. Then he turned toward me briefly, though he was much too far away for me to see his expression. "Ir abelas, da'len. The force of my disquiet robs me of all civility."
"I likely wouldn't complain if one of you wanted to throw me over your shoulder to speed things along," I replied, speaking to all of them. "I am also eager to leave." What I had seen in the Veil was more than disquieting, especially after hearing Dorian's claims of shattered time and Solas's own near-instinctive horror.
Cassandra didn't throw me over her shoulder, but she did let me lean on her arm. "We will have to ride for Haven with this news at once."
"Agreed," I said, ignoring Varric's put-upon sigh. "How annoyed do you think Sera and Blackwall are likely to be after we had them set up camp?"
"I think they'll be more annoyed that I was in the tavern and didn't even have a chance to buy anything," Varric lamented.
Cassandra managed to dredge up enough humor to look smug.