A "Small" Problem

Part 1 – Short People

My companions hadn't made it inside Orzammar's gates. Aiden tried to reason with the guard, telling him he was a Grey Warden and we had a treaty that compelled the dwarves to lend aid, but the guard wouldn't budge until he saw the document for himself. (It was in my pack.) So they had wasted two days waiting for Alistair and me to arrive. Their impatience made them irritable and they argued among themselves.

What a great first impression they make, I thought angrily.

As if that wasn't enough, three of Loghain's lackeys had arrived ahead of our party. The head lickspittle demanded to be let in to speak to their king. "King Loghain demands it," he crowed.

"It wouldn't matter to me if your King Loghain came here riding piggyback on a hurlock," the guard answered him, unmoved by the name-dropping. "No one gets in until I receive word from Assembly Steward Bandelor."

"King Loghain, is it?" I asked, stepping up beside the pompous messenger boy. "Last I heard, Ferelden had a queen and a murdered king. I don't recall there being a coronation lately."

"And just who are you?" he asked snootily. The Orzammar guard watched with disinterest.

I ignored him and spoke to the guard. "I'm a Grey Warden, and I have a treaty compelling Orzammar to provide soldiers in case of a blight." I handed him the document.

"A Grey Warden!" the lackey shouted with a sneer. "Your men murdered King Cailan and cost him the battle…"

"I think you know better than that," I rejoined. "It was your cowardly false king Loghain who caused all the trouble."

The messenger sputtered and fumed. "You will not speak of our king that way! I'll cut your tongue out and watch you choke on your blood before I slit your throat. Draw your sword, traitor."

Mighty big talk for such a little man.

"Suits me. Let's see if your sword arm can back up your claims," I taunted the messenger, then I walked a short distance from the city's gates and waited for him. He lunged toward me with more rage than skill. His companions, a mage and a Denerim palace guard, engaged my men while I dueled the mouthpiece. He was all talk, as I suspected, and I made short work of him, burying one sword in his shoulder, making his drop his weapon, and the other in his chest. I expected a blast of hot air to escape him when he'd been pierced, but it was just a fount of blood where my blade severed his aorta.

The mage was powerful, equal to Morrigan in his spellcasting but better with battle strategy. He knocked her off her feet with a stone fist spell. Aiden got behind him and ran him through with his dagger, then beheaded him with his longsword. Zev and Alistair toyed with the palace guard, letting the poor sod think he was winning before cutting him down.

Opponents vanquished, we sheathed our weapons, brushed ourselves off, and approached the guard. "Now then, about that treaty," I began.

"You've done me a favor, Warden," the guard said. "I've spent a week thinking of ways to kill him slowly." The dwarf carried a battleaxe that would make any kill a quick one, but who was I to piss on his dreams? "Your papers are valid. I'll admit you and your fellows."

He opened the gates, and we entered a long chamber filled with crudely hewn statues of dwarven "paragons"-dwarves who had made notable contributions to the culture and advanced their technology. I assumed those paragons were long dead until I heard a mother and daughter arguing about one called Branka. From their conversation, I surmised that this particular paragon was a contemporary hero.

Another set of iron doors opened into Orzammar's business and residential quarters. It was a city in turmoil, with factions openly fighting in the streets, killing each other simply for being on the opposing side of a political rivalry. We avoided the fights and searched for the Council of the Assembly, and the assembly steward.

Before finding the council, I took time to browse the shops for unique and useful items. I found a merchant near the Deep Roads area that carried a number of things I wanted to buy, funds permitting. One was a plain-looking ring with a ridiculously high price tag.

"What's so special about that ring?" I asked the merchant. "It's awfully plain for that price."

He explained, "I call that ring 'Lifegiver'. It's one of a kind, specially made and enchanted…"

"Enchanted?" I interrupted. "You dwarves aren't able to do magic or enchanting. How was the ring enchanted? Are you trying to cheat me?"

"N-n-n-n-n-no!" he stammered. "My goods are the best, and they're guaranteed."

"Oh, I get it. If the ring doesn't work and I die in battle, I can return it for a full refund?"

"Yes indeed!" he exclaimed cheerfully, missing the glaringly obvious fact that a corpse couldn't ask for their money back. Then, through his lyrium fog, understanding seeped in. "I mean no, the ring won't fail you. It was enchanted by an elven mage from the Circle thing. The circular tower. The tower… thing. You know, the jail where they keep all the mages on the surface."

"Well, he's got part of it right," Morrigan observed. "Tis most certainly a prison for mages."

"It's for their protection," Alistair said. "And it's secure with good reason. Or at least, it was secure before some of them went rogue. That's the way with apostates, isn't it?"

I held up a hand to halt the bickering before it went too far and sidetracked us from our purpose for being in Orzammar. "Let it go, both of you. We can debate the pros and cons of mages and templars another day. For now, let's focus on our mission, if you please."

"Agreed," Morrigan said. Alistair muttered his assent, and the matter was shelved until later.

The ring cost a lot of coin—most of what I had—but if it provided as much protection as the merchant insisted it did, it was a good investment. I took a chance and bought it.

As we walked to the Diamond Quarter's entrance, Zevran scolded me for wasting our coin on an ugly ring that probably did nothing. I came back with, "First of all, it's not our coin. It's my coin. You can all get a share, if you're not above looting and selling goods yourselves. If you rely on me to do all the work, you can bet I'll be keeping the coin. Secondly, I don't have to ask anyone's permission when I want to make a purchase, give to those in need, or throw my entire coin purse in the lava. Thirdly, I don't see you doing without anything you need in the way of weapons and armor, not to mention gifts when I can find them."

Zev laughed and said, "Alright, alright, I give in. I was wrong to question your judgment."

Alistair, our resident troublemaker, added, "Really, Zevran. You claim to know women so well, and you don't know not to bother a woman when she's shopping? Even I knew that."

Aiden got in on it. "I'm impressed, Alistair. For one so reluctant to surrendered his virginity, you've caught on quickly." To Zev, he said, "He's right, you know. About women and shopping."

Morrigan gave the three of them a long, frosty glare. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. Do you ignorant brutes think all women are selfish, brainless bits of fluff?"

"No, of course not," Aiden quickly answered. "It was a joke."

"A poor one. If you want to engage in humor, try to develop a sense of it," she said haughtily.

"Oh look, the Council of the Assembly, dead ahead," I announced, loudly and sarcastically, to stop their bickering. Again. "It seems you children get cranky when you miss your nap time. Let's go find the steward and finish our business."

If only it were that easy. The steward told me of Orzammar's troubles and why none but us were allowed within its gates. They had no king, and there was a stalemate between two candidates. Until it could be settled, Orzammar wasn't in a position to give aid, treaty or no treaty.

Just like with the Dalish. Another hurdle to jump, another snag. No one seems to care that the entire nation is in peril. It's just their problems that matter.

I learned what I could from him about the two candidates. One was the late king's youngest son, the other was the king's advisor and most trusted friend. We'd walked right into a hornet's nest. I would have to choose a side, and try to help get that person elected king before we could get their promise of troops.

Another round of arguments started among my party, and instead of stopping them, I listened to their opinions. I didn't know this Prince Behlen or his opponent Lord Harrowmont. A little input from my group was welcome, but I was too annoyed with them from earlier to ask their advice. So I kept quiet and let them quibble for a while until I reached a decision.

"Let's go talk to Harrowmont's second and see what he has to say," I said at length. "This Behlen sounds too shady for my liking."

"That is exactly why he should rule," Zev said. "Besides, he is of royal blood."

Alistair had his say, too. "Dwarves vote on everything. Even their king is elected. It would seem the assembly should decide."

"Let's. Go. Now." I emphasized each word to get my seriousness across to them. My ducklings lined up and followed obediently. We found Dulin right outside the chamber's doors. He greeted me politely, but refused to let me meet with Harrowmont since there had been an attack on his life earlier that day. To prove my loyalty, he said, I could enter the Proving, a gladiatorial game that the dwarves used to discern whom the ancestors favored.

Okaaayyyy… There's a sensible way of making decisions if ever I heard one.

"Fine, I'll sign up for the Proving," I said. "Anything else?"

"Win it, that's all," Dulin answered.

Little smart ass.

"I don't enter a competition with the intention of losing."

We went to the Proving arena and I signed up. I was put into battle immediately. Dwarves were reputed to be tough, courageous warriors. They talked tough, but those stubby little arms and legs put them at a disadvantage. My longer limbs and longswords made "short" work of it, if you'll excuse the awful pun. Eight rounds of easy wins later, I was hustled over to Harrowmont's estate.

He seemed to be a sincere man, loyal to the late king and true to his memory. But as far as being able to guarantee troops, he couldn't do anything. He had to be king to give that order, and the assembly that elected kings had to be convinced. As yet, they weren't.

"What else?" I asked, growing impatient with the delays. The horde wasn't going to wait for these fellows to settle their political woes.

"Have you heard of Jarvia?" he asked. She ran the Carta, which was Orzammar's organized crime ring.

Before the day was out, Jarvia wished she hadn't heard of me. An hour after finding a way into her hideout, she and her whole gang were dead. We went back to Harrowmont, my purse fat with the coin I'd received from selling the loot from their corpses.

"I hate to go back on my word…" Harrowmont began.

"But you will," I finished, thoroughly vexed by these games. "What will it take to get you on the throne and to get my troops? The bottom line, if you please. I can't waste any more time doing the Orzammar guards' dirty work."

"Have you heard of Branka?"

Andraste's hairy armpits…

"No, but I'm sure you're about to tell me who she is and why I need to find her or kill her for you."

The Deep Roads. I should have seen this one coming. After the jokes we'd made at Teagan's house about going to the Deep Roads, it looked like that was where we were headed. A dwarf named Oghren stopped us before we got to the entrance to the Deep Roads and asked to come along. He was Branka's husband, he said, and if anyone knew how to find her, he did.

"Is that so?" I asked, skeptical that the uncouth, smelly little man could help us. "If that's the case, and she's been gone for two years, why haven't you found her by now and saved me the trouble?"

He tagged along anyway, walking in the lead beside me like it was our joint expedition. As long as he could lead us to Branka and help us unravel the political knot, he could walk wherever he pleased.

Before we found Branka, we found darkspawn. A lot of them. I'd heard from Alistair how the Deep Roads always had darkspawn, even in times of blight, but there were more than I expected. Genlocks, hurlocks, battlemages and ogres, a bridge where shrieks ambushed us from both sides, a genlock forgemaster with deadly magical talents… and my personal favorite, an ancient darkspawn that led me to a longsword that was to become my favorite. It belonged to a "topsider"—in this case, an elven rogue—who'd fought valiantly with the dwarves against the darkspawn and perished in the Deep Roads long ago. His sword was sharper and more powerful than Duncan's sword. I tucked the pieces in my pack to have them reforged by a weaponsmith. Levi Dryden's brother was a smith, I recalled, and plied his trade at the Peak.

We descended miles beneath the surface, following tunnels and fighting huge spiders along with the darkspawn, and a few stone golems that were much larger than Shale. We knew we were getting close to Branka when we found the last living member of her house. It was her captain, and also her lesbian lover Hespith. She'd gone mad with whatever horrors she'd seen and endured. Her face was blackened with either terrible bruises or darkspawn corruption. She spoke in disjointed phrases, going from despair to terror and back again. She kept repeating one word that, to me, sounded like a lunatic's piffle: "broodmother."

I asked Oghren, "What's broodmother? Is that a dwarven thing?"

"Nope," was his eloquent response.

"Let's keep going," I sighed. We all stank from darkspawn blood, but for Oghren the stench of it was an improvement over his normal body odor. The little fellow could swing a battle axe with the best of them, but one wanted to be upwind of him when he did.

We came upon an entrance to a cave, sealed by heavy iron doors, kept locked and guarded by two ogres. After putting them down, we obtained the key, fought off some irate ghosts, and opened the doors that barred our way into the cave. When the doors swung open, the smell that rolled out at us was far worse than Oghren's. I put a hand to my nose and stopped, leaning against the cave wall to wait for the waves of nausea to pass. I had never smelled anything so disgusting, and I'd come upon decomposing bodies and stepped in things so foul I'd rather not identify them. But this… Nothing compared to this. I wasn't the only one affected. Morrigan gagged, Alistair's eyes were watering, and Aiden held his sleeve over his mouth and nose as a filter. Zev backed out of the cave, standing outside the entrance, gulping in stale but less acrid air.

Once I regained control and the urge to vomit passed, I waited for my companions to recover enough for us to proceed. "Take your time," I told them, "but hurry up about it. We have to go forward. Whatever we're after, it must be through here."

Morrigan cast a protective ward around each of us to help hold back the worst of the odors. "It will not last long," she cautioned. "We must move quickly, and hope we finish our task here before the ward dissipates."

We'd come upon many blobs of what looked like raw, skinned flesh. In places, it appeared to have grown out of the very walls. The closer we got to this area, the more numerous they became. And needless to say, they stank. I led the group around a bend where two more fleshy blobs sat, sending up their offensive odor. They were fetid, but not even close to what we found around the last bend, inside the belly of the cave.

The source of the horrific stink was a very large, immensely fat, multi-layered creature with the face of a human or dwarf. The cavern floor was covered with a fleshy material that pulsed with life, coated with a slick, waxy film that made it difficult to keep our footing. The cave reeked of sour sweat and vomit and urine and feces, and a host of other sickening, unidentifiable odors. The thing—and I assumed this was the "broodmother"—sat in the back of the cave. It roared in indignation at our approach.

Piecing together the information Hespith had given us, the creature had once been a dwarven woman. Its layers were breasts. It had eight of them in four layers, the bottom band of flesh completely covering the lower part of its body, assuming it still had hips and legs. Its bulk made it immobile, but it was not without defenses. Long, stout, tentacles shot up from the floor, grasping at us.

Zevran stood transfixed for a few seconds. "Maker breath," he exclaimed. "So many breasts, and all of them so ugly!" With his accent, it came out as "aaagleeee". At another time, it would have been funny.

"Arrows, Aiden!" I shouted. "Ignore the tentacles and aim for its heart and head." He and Morrigan stood back, trying to stay out of reach of the tentacles, and fired arrows and fireballs at the thing. The rest of us were forced to move in close to the main body. A cheesy substance oozed from between the folds of the beast, allowing it to shift its body from side to side. Blisters formed where fireballs had hit it, but the wounds were superficial.

Its short arms flailed uselessly, but those tentacles were dangerous. One of them curled around Alistair, lifted him off the floor, and commenced to bash him against the stone cavern walls. If he weren't freed from it quickly he would die. I slashed at the base of the tentacle with my swords, both of which were enchanted with flame runes. The additional damage hurt the creature enough to make it release Alistair, who rolled out of the way as fast as his pain would permit. Oghren continued to hack at the base of the tentacles, felling them like trees.

Shrieks and genlocks swarmed in to protect this monster. Morrigan concentrated her attacks on them while Aiden continued to make the broodmother look like a porcupine. There were so many arrows in the thing by now that it should have been dead, but I saw that there was no blood around the wounds. On the severed tentacles, yes. But the arrows, embedded in bloodless flesh, did nothing.

"Aiden!" I yelled, intending to tell him to aim for the neck and head only. When I looked around, he was fighting off two shrieks and losing the battle. I ran to help him. Morrigan saw them as soon as I did, and she sent a steady stream of fire against one while I disemboweled the other.

"Thanks… girls…" he gasped. Blood surged from a deep puncture wound in his side.

I called to Morrigan, "If you know any healing spells, you're needed here." She saw Aiden slump to the floor, and for the first time since I'd met her, I saw genuine worry in her face. She rushed to his side to try to help him and I returned to the fight.

"Alright Lumpy, let's finish this dance," I snarled. I despised this beast and the injuries it caused my fellows, and its stench, and the fact that this hideously transformed woman was birthing darkspawn. It was weakening. With superhuman effort, I ran up the slippery layers of blubber and climbed onto its back. It tried to grasp me with its tentacles but they couldn't reach me. I intended to cut its throat but I was losing my balance as it frantically bucked, trying to crush me between its back and the wall. "Sod it," I said, and plunged both blades into its spine near the base of its skull. Now there was blood. A gushing fountain of red-black, malodorous blood, covering my armor, my arms, splashing into my hair and on my face. I grabbed my blades and yanked them out, rolled down the dead beast's side, ducked into a crevice, and heaved until I had nothing left.

While we tried to catch our breath, Hespith spoke to us from a ledge above the dead monster. "That was Laryn. That's what I didn't want to become. But I'm dying, dream-friend…"

"Shut up," I growled.

"I'm dying of something worse than death…" she went on.

I picked up Aiden's bow and took an arrow from his quiver.

"Betrayal…" she finished.

"Here's your betrayal, bitch," I said, and sent an arrow through her throat. That shut her up.

"Nice shot," Aiden smiled weakly.

"I was aiming for her head," I replied with a sheepish grin.

"That was rather cruel, don't you think?" Alistair scolded me.

"Was it?" I challenged. "She was to be the next broodmother. I think I was merciful."

"Of course, you're right," he said. "My apologies."

"Can you walk?" I asked Aiden. Morrigan had made a potion from her bag of herbs and administered it to him. He was pale and shaky, but he got to his feet with assistance.

He said he could probably walk with our support. Morrigan pulled one of his arms over her shoulders. I ducked under his other arm and we escorted him from that stinking crypt, through a narrow passage that was the only way out of the aptly-named Dead Trenches, into fresher air. Out of the cave, I pulled off my undertunic and tore it into strips. We bandaged Aiden's wound, then left Morrigan to sit with him while the rest of us continued the search for Branka.

Part 2 – "I Am Ironman"

"You're the Caridin, as in Caridin's Cross?" I asked the 10-foot tall iron golem. I'd found his journal in Ortan Thaig but hadn't had a free minute to look through it. The book was ancient.

"I bound myself into this body," he lamented. "The Anvil of the Void is my creation. I used it to make stone golems, and when my mortal body was nearing death, I created this one for my soul. I've lived every day since then regretting what I'd done."

A sad tale, to be sure. The fellow—the golem, rather—was candid about his mistakes and regret, but remorse didn't undo anything. The souls he'd used to power his golem army were trapped in them forever.

"This is a much better endorsement than what we'd get from Branka," I said to Alistair. "He's a thousand years old or more, and still living in the body built on his anvil." I made a deal with Caridin. "I need your endorsement for Orzammar's new king. Without it, we won't have your people's help against the darkspawn."

Caridin was well acquainted with the darkspawn threat. It was the main reason he'd created the anvil and the golem army centuries earlier. His golems were the only beings immune to the tainted blood's poison. He vowed to give his endorsement if I would agree to destroy the anvil.

"Consider it done," I said. "But first, could you make a crown so that the assembly will know I wasn't just spinning a yarn for them?"

"I will do this," he said, and went to his anvil one last time.

While Caridin worked, Branka came bursting through the door. "NO! You can't destroy the anvil! I need it to make an army of golems. With them, you can fight your blight and win, and I'll be the most famous paragon in the history of my people."

"She was always like that," Oghren confided to me. "It was 'me, me, me.' Wasn't ever about us."

"Bah!" she scoffed. "You were a nobody, and you'll always be a nobody. I am your Paragon." You could actually hear the way she capitalized "Paragon" in her hubristic tone.

"After you caused the death of your entire house? All two hundred of them?" Oghren said. "No, lady, you're no paragon. You're a gifted smith, but you're a murderer."

"I left you out of it, didn't I? You were safe at home while I took the risks."

"Yeah, sure, thanks for caring. You left me home so you could take your girlfriend Hespith with you."

I broke in, "Kids, we really don't have time for your marital spat right now."

Branka took offense, and I frankly couldn't give a nug's ass what she thought of me or my demeaning remarks. That short, cocky, mouthy crackpot wasn't going to get in my way. Not when I was this close to settling Orzammar's political stalemate and getting the army I needed.

"You ignorant human fool," she shot back. "What would your kind know of paragons and fame and power?"

As she continued to rant, I drew my blades. She, in response, pulled a golem control rod from its sheath on her belt. The stone golems that had stood inert in the room came to life, and Caridin froze in mid-strike at the anvil.

"Oh no you don't, you sodding rug-muncher," Oghren warned. He pulled his battleaxe and swung at her, severing the arm that held the control rod. The stone golems froze again, and Caridin was free.

"Stop her!" Caridin pleaded.

"Stand aside, Warden," Oghren said. "I got this one." He and his one-armed wife fought a short battle. She was bleeding profusely, but was too insane to lie down and die with what little dignity she might have had left. She swung her dagger at Oghren, staggering and growing weaker as her blood emptied from her body.

"She's suffering," Alistair said. "End it, Oghren."

"With pleasure," the dwarf answered, raising his axe overhead and bringing it down with all of his considerable strength, cleaving Branka's skull, neck, and midway through her chest.

"Overkill much, Oggie?" I observed.

"I call that move the 'dwarven divorce.' Believe me, you don't know how long I've wanted to do that. She always was a nerve-grating bitch."

Caridin finished the crown—a piece of work unequaled in its style and craftsmanship. He handed it to me. "Give it to whomever you choose. I feel you will know who can best lead Orzammar. Now will you keep your end of our bargain?"

"I will, as I promised," I answered. The anvil itself was a thing of beauty, but its bloody history could not be repeated. The only thing that could destroy it was a hammer of Caridin's make. I swung it with every ounce of strength I had and struck the anvil in its center. It cracked, began to crumble, then blew apart with enough force to knock me back and on my butt. "You could have warned me," I grumbled.

Caridin thanked me, wished me well, then took a swan dive off a ledge and into the lava river below. It saddened me to see him die. Whatever wrong he'd done in the past, I would always remember him as an honorable man.

Dwarf.

Golem.

Whatever.

"Let's get back to the assembly," I said.

"We need to see how Aiden's getting along," Alistair added. The worry in his voice was impossible to miss. "He didn't look too good when we left him in the Dead Trenches, and Morrigan's healing skill is as poor as mine."

When we approached Aiden, we knew his injury was worse than we'd thought. His skin was ashen, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were turning blue. He was dying. Morrigan tended to him lovingly, with trembling hands and tear-filled eyes—something I never expected to witness in her. She truly cared for him.

I crouched beside him. "Aiden," I said softly. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly to focus. They were glazed. He rolled his head against the wall to turn his face toward me.

"Boss," he whispered weakly. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

"You can't die," I said, choked up and fighting a losing battle against a typhoon of tears. "We need you."

"Not… what I… planned." It was his way of apologizing. And saying goodbye. His strength failed and his head lolled to his chest.

"Aiden, no!" I cried.

Morrigan said, "He's not dead yet. He faints and awakens. Aiden is a fighter, but I fear he hasn't much longer." Her voice sounded as mournful as I felt.

"Is there nothing you can do for him?" I was practically pleading with her.

"If there was, I would have done it." She brushed a stray lock of hair from his brow. "I cannot help him."

I was desperate. "Give me some elfroot. Deep mushrooms. Something. Anything."

"I've given him potions for injury and illness. He's bleeding inside, Winter. That is what is…" she choked on her words, recovered, and finished, "…what is killing him."

Oghren's gravelly voice broke our sorrowful silence. "You should put the poor sod out of his misery. Where he's at, he ain't comin back." Alistair jabbed him sharply with an elbow, and their height difference caused the blow to smack the dwarf in the mouth. Oghren turned on him. "Better watch those arms, pretty boy, or you'll be wearing that elbow in your arse."

"Shut up, you two," I hissed. Couldn't they behave like adults just this once, and let a good man die in peace?

"I can release him from his pain quickly," Zev offered. "There's no need for him to suffer so."

"Touch him and I'll incinerate you on the spot," Morrigan warned. Zev backed up.

"Give me a potion," I repeated to her. "Give me something. I have to at least try to help him. To ease his pain, if nothing else."

"I have no more potions," she answered. "I have tried everything I had, but I cannot heal an open wound."

What was I thinking? I always carried a few potions in my pack. I shucked it from my shoulders and dug through its contents. There, under the loot and goods, at the bottom, was a small pouch.

Andraste's ashes! I've kept them so secret even I've forgotten about them.

I pulled an injury potion from the pack, surreptitiously added a pinch of the ashes to it, and swirled it around to mix it. "Try to rouse him," I said to Morrigan.

"Tis of no use," she answered. "You are wasting a potion."

"Please. We have to try," I urged. She stroked his face and muttered a few words, an incantation, under her breath. Aiden stirred and raised his head, but his eyes were still closed.

"Aiden, listen to me," I said to him, cupping a hand under his chin. "I need you to drink this potion."

"Can't…"

"You must."

His throat worked to form another word. "Dying…"

"Drink." I pressed the tiny flask to his mouth. "Please." I tipped the flask and let a drop or two flow out onto his lip. He parted his lips and I poured a little more in his mouth.

"Must you drown him?" Morrigan demanded. I didn't answer her. She was afraid of losing him, same as I was.

"Tastes…" Aiden wheezed, "…like… crap."

"No worse than most of our meals at camp," I said, drawing a hint of a smile from him. "Drink." The flask tipped and he took the potion, in small sips, until he'd drained its contents.

"Before… I go…" he whispered. Was it my imagination, or did his voice sound stronger? Did I hear only what I so badly wanted to hear?

I leaned closer to him so he wouldn't have to use his remaining strength to talk.

My ear was right by his mouth. I felt his breath when he whispered, "You can be.. a real bitch… sometimes."

I was laughing and crying at once. He was stronger; it wasn't my imagination. In minutes he was sitting up, his eyes cleared, his color normal, his breathing strong and even. The ashes worked.

"Welcome back," I said.

"You're going to get me back for that 'bitch' thing, aren't you?" The old Aiden was alive and well.

"When you least expect it, yes."

"What 'bitch thing'?" Alistair asked.

Morrigan and I helped him to his feet. He put an arm around her and kissed her cheek, something she wouldn't have tolerated before his near-death episode. He looked at me. "Thanks, Winter. For the record, I wouldn't have said that if… you know…"

"If you weren't sure you were dying and could get away with it?" I suggested.

"Something like that, yeah," he grinned. He looked down at his torso. "Damn shriek ruined my best leather armor."

"What did you give him?" Alistair asked. "And what's this 'bitch thing'?"

"Just a potion," I responded coyly. "And the 'bitch thing' is our little secret." I winked at Aiden and he winked back.

Alistair glared at us. He was feeling left out and a tad jealous. "Let's get out of this stinking tunnel," he said, walking ahead of the group.

The Council of the Assembly was in session when we arrived, and the deshyrs were at each other's throats as usual. Behlen was throwing around his same old accusations: that Lord Harrowmont forged the letter from this father, or that Harrowmont coerced the late king's endorsement, etc. Harrowmont had answered each of the prince's charges before, more than once. He refused to acknowledge them again.

Dwarven politics. Gotta love it.

The Assembly Steward noticed our arrival. He beckoned to us to come forward. Oghren and I stepped onto the dais in the middle of the council chamber floor. The room went quiet except for the Assembly Steward's queries.

"Have you something to add, Warden? You went in search of the Paragon Branka. Did you find her, and if so, whom does she support?"

"Branka is dead," I answered. "But we found Caridin."

"Impossible!" Behlen scoffed. "Caridin died centuries ago."

"He lived in the body of a golem that he built," Oghreh put in. "And he made this crown for the new king."

"King Harrowmont," I finished.

You'd think that would put the matter to rest, wouldn't you? Not so fast. Prince Behlen wasn't going to give up his bid for the throne no matter who said what about whom. He called his followers to arms, and the place erupted in a mad free-for-all. Nobles, armed with maces and daggers, attacked the opposing side's followers.

"Let's sit this one out and let them handle it," I said. I'd had enough fighting to last me a lifetime, and there was still the blight ahead of us.

Harrowmont's new royal guards put the riot down, and when it was over, Prince Behlen lay dead, along with his followers. It was a messy start to Harrowmont's reign, through no fault of his own.

"Congratulations, King Harrowmont," I said. "Now that this is settled, will you honor the treaty as we agreed?"

"I will, without fail," he consented. "When you call, Orzammar will be there."

"Very well," I sighed, bone-weary and ready for a bath, a meal, and a night or two of sound sleep. No more talk was necessary. Our job was done, the treaties had all been served and the troops we needed were pledged to us when the time came to fight. And we'd picked up another party member: the coarse, crude, and occasionally entertaining Oghren.

When we neared Rainesfere, I sent Aiden, Morrigan, Zevran, and Oghren back to camp. "Rest up. When Alistair and I return, be ready to move out. Things are about to get real."

"This wasn't real enough for ya, Warden?" Oghren asked with a bushy eyebrow arched. "How much more real do ya want it?"

"Come on, dwarf," Aiden prodden him. "I'll explain it on the way."

Alistair and I waded into Lake Calenhad, fully clothed, and washed off without soap. We removed the blood, but some of the stench of the Deep Roads remained in our clothing. It would have to do.

We hoisted our weapons and packs, and turned toward Teagan's estate. I had a promise to keep.