Chapter Fifteen: Soul Reaver
Song is Helium Vola: The Unquiet Grave
"In reality we know nothing, for truth is in the depths"
(Democritus)
Trigger warnings: memories of rape (Tabris origin and Rylock's rape by Erimond that resulted in giving birth to Keili in Aeonar) the full description of the revenge Rillian took on Vaughan Kendells and some disturbing details about The Mother and The Children.
Rylock shuddered. She hadn't wanted to learn this about Anders...had never asked to know what imprisonment in even a 'kind Circle' was like. She wasn't quite sure whether she remembered Erimond as a means of setting necessity above guilt... "this is what I saved the non-mages of Thedas from" ...or where her motive was nobler. In any case, she picked up the shard...a bright glass knife that cut her palm...
…"You called your kind our food and drink, Templar. If you were merely that, an elementary usurpation of your nervous system would give us perfect cattle-control. That trifling skill was ours long ago. But I will invest more than half the magic your blood gives me in fabricating elements to keep your brain alive...to keep the *I* awake throughout my feast. You will live till the end and understand everything...everything... I do to your victims" ...
Erimond's smile was barbed with fine, sharp hooks of cruelty and his eyes beamed fond, languorous anticipation of her pain. With casual brutality, Blood Control taught her the limits of human will. At each new violation – getting her first inklings of the next phase of horror - she told herself, "I will not let this happen." And it happened, nonetheless. Quietly, the alien force crept in, taking and holding the positions of strength. Her self-awareness was left to roam impotently in the back of her mind, surveying its occupied domain.
Blood Control traced and mapped the interface between the afferent neurons that carried information to the brain and the efferent neurons that governed response. It interposed its will between, sharing consciousness while solely commanding the pathways of action. The host – the bottled personality – was mute and limbless as a Broodmother for any least expression of her own will - while hellishly articulate and agile in the service of the Blood Mage's. It was Rylock's own hands that tortured the man she loved...that took fingers, nose and sex and hauled the entrails from him...her own intimate tongue that scavenged like a vulture...her body that experienced the orgasms that crowned Erimond's despoliations.
Just before the end, Guy had looked at her and known she was guiltless. So Erimond had made her blind him. His face, turned towards her at the hour of his death, seemed to weep scarlet tears, but his last expression was a smile of recognition. He was no longer seeing her - friend, comrade-in-arms, found family – she was now only the thing that had unlocked the door. He was looking past her...at something only visible to those on the other side. She would have bet her soul he was with the Maker.
But she was still with Erimond. She didn't much care about his rape of her body...after the worst thing, all that remained were the last trivial and redundant motions of a sadistic party. She felt more violated by experiencing the rape from Erimond's point of view...those memories would never leave her. But she had realized sharing the memories of a rapist did not make her guilty of his crimes. If they warned her just what to expect from Blood Mages – just why the sentence had to be death - well, that was useful information.
She had served her twelve months in Aeonar – mandatory for those touched by Blood Magic. Erimond had escaped...which meant the Chantry had no other way to be sure she was free from his influence. She had certainly left him enough of her own blood. Boann – her sister-by-choice - had gifted her a bracelet of a strange material that absorbed light. Its inscription said, "The light shines in the darkness but the darkness had not understood it." Because the rock absorbed daylight or candlelight - a glow that receded in the darkness - it kept time. When Rylock woke from smothering nightmares, and needed to know what remained of the night's sentence, she would consult it instead of an hourglass.
Sometimes Rylock woke the other inmates with her screaming. She opened her mouth and tore the wire from her jaw. She found out a person can scream blood. Knight Captain Greagoir had used the word "survival" and she had wanted to tell him it was just a license that could expire any day, any moment. Erimond was still out there and that meant he could continue to work on her. Or, worse, to continue to work on the world through her.
Her pregnancy had seemed an example of this. Remille – whom she hated, because she had seen Erimond's knowledge of what this mage was and what he had planned, only no-one had believed her – had given her a pill to induce miscarriage. Rylock knew if she had refused the Knight Commander would have ordered her. For a Templar to give birth to a mage's child was shameful to the Order, degrading to herself. Would be cited by the clerics as evidence it hadn't really been rape. But Rylock was an Orthodox Andrastean before she was a Templar...she swirled the pill around in her mouth then spat it out discreetly. She had almost snorted with laughter, because any girl raised by Mother Leanna learned to do that young...it was the only way to survive some of the things she made her girls eat.
The birth pains were much worse than anything Rylock had expected, and they went on all day. A huge, dry stone inside her seemed to be forcing her bones apart. How did women do this...again and again and again? She would rather have faced a Pride demon without a Sword of Mercy. At the first very strong pain - a pain so bad she didn't feel her teeth sink into her knuckles; a pain that forced faeces out of her – she decided she would gladly let the clerics watch and even laugh at her. Anything but this. Day turned into night and still no baby came.
When the pain slackened she fell asleep, and when a new pain started she awoke. For a while she thought Guy was speaking to her, but then she remembered he was gone. When a new pain woke her, she saw only the high black walls of her underground cell, sunk far below where sunbeams can reach. She felt like a sea-creature, giving birth under water.
When she woke again, she was in a different room. A medical chamber. Her legs were tied in stirrups and her distended abdomen was bared. Her hands were tied too, behind her head. She wondered if Erimond had found her - if she was in his power once more. If he had come to take the child who would certainly be born a powerful mage. How not? Both Rylock's parents were mages – why she had been taken from them and raised by the Chantry – and Erimond was a Magister who had been visiting Remille. Normally, of course, any Magister foolish enough to journey to the South would be caught and his phylactery taken – but Erimond had immunity due to his association with Weisshaupt. Greagoir's predecessor had been far too slack...she had seen the planned attack in Erimond's mind – Remille was making deals with a creature called 'The Architect' - and the Knight Commander had done nothing to prevent it.
Then she saw a Circle mage. She didn't know his name and didn't care...all robes were the same to her. She knew from the uniform he was a Circle healer trusted to assist the Chantry in Aeonar. She didn't care to know more.
Taking a glossy piece of obsidian from his bag, he rapped it smartly with a piece of steel, flaking off a leaf-shaped shard with an edge so fine it diffracted the candlelight. Swirling rainbow colours infused the nearly invisible shard with living eagerness.
Other instruments came from the bag. A large forceps with brutal steel jaws. A leather sack of things that scraped and clattered with metallic menace: an auger, with sinuous curves and glinting point – huge scissors and - lastly – a blunt-nosed hook. The tools of extremity, the weapons of defeat – to sacrifice the child when there was no hope for it, and little more for the mother.
The mage said, "These instruments will not be necessary. Your hips are too narrow...but I can cut you open, remove the child, and use magic to close the wound. You will both live."
Rylock was angry. "That is a sin. If it is the Maker's will we die, we don't use magic to cheat death."
The mage ignored her. The pains went on. She flinched at his hand in her vagina, and felt him tugging. The flesh around the child's head was stretched drum-tight, already slightly torn. The mage's manipulation had no effect. Extending his hand for the obsidian blade, he warned Rylock, "This may hurt a bit."
Rylock chuckled grimly. Everything hurts. Get on with it.
The black shimmer of stone slid across taut skin. The wound blossomed open and blood flowed busily.
The child still refused to exit. With every pulse of her body, Rylock was closer to being killed by the innocent child. In horrible balance, she was equally closer to killing it because she couldn't deliver it.
She heard the mage's voice. He was talking to the Knight Commander.
"Shoulder's jammed against the pubic bone. Cord's caught. Pulling can kill. A caesarian will save them both."
"Do it," the Knight Commander told the mage. "I don't care about the baby – it's only going to be a robe – but I'm not losing a Templar in such a shameful way. While you're at it, you can tie her tubes...that way there'll be no repeat. Now they've allowed females to serve as Templars, I don't want other male mages taking this kind of revenge."
Rylock felt the mage start to cut, but the pain moved very far away. As if she were in a winter lake, she was cold, numb, almost asleep – a fish under black ice, barely moving.
By the time she woke, the baby was gone and there was a line of stitches across her stomach. She remembered a story the girls in Amaranthine Chantry had told each other: about a wolf who ate seven children. The mother waited until the wolf was asleep then cut his belly open, freed her children, then replaced them with seven stones. Then she sewed him up. The wolf woke up, bemused, then fell into the river and drowned. The mother and her children lived happily ever after.
Rylock was sickened, ashamed. Oh Maker, did I really think it would be better for Keili to die, cleansed of her curse of magic, without even the chance to live? Did I really think that for a mage to use surgery to save our lives was blasphemy? How can I ever face Keili again?
She remembered other things too, about Aeonar...things she had long forgotten. The sin wasn't that these things had happened to her – she'd been shamed, she had no reason to be ashamed – it was that she had carried on sending mages there without a qualm.
Rylock got a grip of herself. Yes, you're a sinner and a murderer...which you knew already. You've still got to face Nightmare. Regrets will have to wait.
Nineteen-year-old Rillian dreamed of flight.
About twenty yards in front of her she saw an enormous creature...a towering evil like a wall of black oil a mile high. It was almost formless but had the suggestion of a spider. It seemed it had been chasing the people she loved for as long as she could remember but they never turned and faced it, though she knew watching its shadow spread in front of her was more terrifying than facing it could be. She thought of oil...the way it spread and spread...wringing colour from above and below, altering everything it touched.
She knew she must pursue it. Without knowing how, she knew its speed was identical to her own and it was imperative she catch it. She was running through a vast shadowy warren of wood and stone, sliced into ominous shapes by a forest of human legs. Arl Urien's guards. She saw no faces, just these huge muddy lumps that chased her round and round, as if she were a rat that needed culling.
The entire Alienage was a gauntlet of smells: from the rich, rare scent of the middens to the brackish sourness of overflowing drains. Threaded beneath all this was the low thrum of life - of ancient vitality - of the roots of the Vhenadahl burrowing deep beneath wet, refreshed earth.
She saw the feral shadows flickering under the dark weave of branches. She ignored them, increasing her speed. She felt herself getting lighter and lighter - leaving the ground for three, four, five heartbeats. Each breath was drawn through fire, but she ignored the burn. Details like that lost their importance; she left them behind.
Now a strange thing happened. Joyously, as if remembering with relief a former incarnation, she dropped to all fours. She felt her musculature and skeleton fluidly rearranging themselves. There was no horror in it, only delight, as if discovering with relief a long-forgotten talent. Morrigan had taught her every lesson on becoming a Shapeshifter – during their long conversations by the Marsh Witch's campfire (Morrigan had never come any closer to the main camp: so hungry for love, so afraid of love) but she had been clear Rillian could only learn the knowledge in theory...as an Elf she had a higher affinity for magic than most humans, but not enough to cast.
In the Fade, the rules were different. During the Broken Circle quest Rillian had stopped at various fountains and felt her affinity for magic grow. Rylock, who had saved her from Sloth, had told her not to be so foolish, but Rillian had decided there were some things a Templar was not qualified to judge. Here there were more miraculous mirrors that reminded her of Briala's Eluvians. They, too, told her long-forgotten secrets. Once, every Elf had been a mage...now that she walked bodily in the Fade that time had come for her. It was like being born. She could feel Urthemiel...crying and raging to get out...she had been a dragon once and would be again.
It amused her, seeing her own armoured claws reaching in front of her in long, graceful strides. It seemed ridiculous she had ever run in any other way. She spread her wings, laughing - caught a gust like a white-winged ship sailing on air. Colourless rain shimmered above like a glittering, ever-changing mesh. Smoke-coloured clouds curled in lazy ringlets. The weight of mortal breaths and the slough of fear fell away like cast-off rags. She was vast as an ocean and weightless as a column of light. She tingled all over with a wild, strange, sweet sense of exultation - her soul washed clean in that great aerial bath.
Flemeth – a dragon who had been a mere pupil of Urthemiel – had once told her: it is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly...
"Ril! Wake up, cousin - why are you still in bed…"
"Mmmph." Rillian curled up like a boiled shrimp and pulled the blankets over her head.
A tug - a pull - and she squealed at the sudden rush of cold air.
She burrowed deeper into the sheets and wrapped her arms over her head.
"Come on - don't make me use cold water again. You do remember what today is, don't you?"
"My wedding?" Rillian asked hopefully.
"That's what I came to tell you! Your groom, Nelaros, he's here early."
"Really? That's great! The sooner the better."
In the back of her mind Rillian feared a handsome man would take one look at a too-tall, too-muscled, flat-chested girl and turn and run back to Highever. That would have broken her heart. As soon as she had seen the ring Nelaros had sent her – the silver band he had made himself - she had known they were the same. That she set songs to music and he set songs to fire and steel. He could not read, of course, but she wrote to him constantly and he kept every letter. She had promised to read them to him as soon as they were married. She would teach him to read...as Mother Boann had taught her. The fact most Elves were denied the joy of reading had always seemed to her one of the cruelest aspects of being second-class citizens.
Cyrion was waiting for her in the corner of their L-shaped, one-room house. "Ah, my little girl. It's...the last day I'll be able to call you that. Oh, I wish your mother were here!"
Outside the whole community had come to wish her joy...except Elva, of course.
"You'll have to excuse me if I don't congratulate you." Her thin, bitter mouth was pursed like a cat's arse. Everyone knew Elva had been jilted at the alter when her groom had discovered her father had gambled away her dowry.
"You'll have to excuse me if I don't stay to chat."
She met friends of her mother's...greatly daring for Elves to profess friendship with an Orlesian bard executed for stealing details of King Maric's voyage...and gratefully accepted their ten silvers. Ten silvers! The kind of money only a bard could earn...but Rillian had given it away as soon as she found out her best friend was being forced to serve as a maid at Ostagar. An Elven woman surrounded by human soldiers who hadn't seen a woman in months had reason to be terrified. Ten silvers would be enough for her to stay here and set up her own business...Rillian was sure Nelaros would forgive her generosity. An Elf was forbidden to pursue the blacksmith's trade in Denerim...but he had dreams of offering his services to the Gray Wardens. Rillian would follow wherever he led.
But shem cruelty was never far away. Vaughan Kendells and two friends were hunting for women who did not have the right to say "no". The animal smell of a mob sullied the air.
"Let go of me, please!"
"It's a party, isn't it?" Vaughan Kendells turned to his friends, "Grab a whore each and let's have a good time. Savour the hunt, boys. Take this little wench here...so young and vulnerable."
Neria was twelve years old.
"Touch her and I'll gut you, you pig!"
Rillian wanted to cheer. Her cousin's courage was legendary. Men spoke of Shianni with admiration and women with half-gratitude half-fear, "One day she'll bring repression down like hailstones". But Rillian was on Shianni's side totally. Equality was not gained by simpering and pretending to be grateful for the scraps their overlords handed down. Equality was won. She didn't dream of joining the Dalish...she dreamed of teaching her own people the lessons Adaia had taught her.
"Please, my lord," Cyrion begged, "We're celebrating weddings here."
"Silence, worm!" Vaughan backhanded Rillian's father across the face. Cyrion went down like a felled oak.
Ignoring her friends' frantic warnings, Rillian fronted Vaughan "beard to beard" as the ancient sagas put it.
"I know what you're thinking but maybe we shouldn't get involved," Soris hissed frantically.
"Objection noted. Now get out of my way."
"What's this...another lovely one to keep me company?"
"Dream on, shem."
"Ha! Do you have any idea who I am?"
"A coward who stayed behind while his elderly father is fighting at Ostagar."
For a moment, Vaughan's outrage was almost comical. He was shocked enough for Shianni to sneak behind him...grab a bottle...and bring it down on the back of his head. Hard.
"Are you insane!" Vaughan's friends shouted. "That's Vaughan Kendells – the heir to the Arl of Denerim!"
"Oh, Maker." Shianni covered her head in her hands.
Rillian was ashamed. She had known (her time as Lady Habren's maid had taught her about Ferelden's nobility) and she had done this anyway. Shianni was ignorant of the ways of nobility...but not so stupid. What had she unleashed?
"You've a lot of nerve, knife-ears. This'll go badly for you."
After Vaughan's friends dragged the unconscious nobleman away Shianni was mortified. "I really messed up this time."
"Don't worry," Soris tried to reassure her, "He won't tell anyone an Elven woman took him down."
By the time Rillian stood in the square, facing the blond, handsome man who darted admiring glances at her with shy green eyes when he thought she wasn't looking, she had forgotten all about Vaughan and shem unpleasantness.
Hahren Valendrian spoke the words that had been said since the beginning.
"Friends and family...today we not only celebrate this Joining but also our bonds of kin and kind. We are a free people, but that was not always so. Andraste, the Maker's prophet, freed us from the bonds of Tevinter slavery. As our community grows, remember that our strength lies in our commitment to tradition and to each other."
Mother Boann stepped forward. The only priest who performed Elven weddings within the Maker's sight, believing their souls were equal. Grand Cleric Bronach had criticized Boann...as did Grand Cleric Leanna. Boann did not care. She had taught Rillian to read...taught her she had a soul equal to any human's...taught her to think for herself. Rillian could not imagine a better representative of the Maker. She wanted Boann to speak the sacred words.
"In the name of the Maker...who brought us into this world...and in whose name we say the Chant of Light...I now pronounce you man and wife."
Nelaros took Rillian in his arms. She had been deathly afraid she would dwarf her groom...that the years as a docker that had followed her sacking by Lady Habren would ensure she towered over him. But she needn't have worried. The blacksmith stood a head taller and his muscles lifted her with ease. For the first time in her life, Rillian felt delicate and light as a feather. He slipped the wedding ring onto the index finger of her right hand. In this way the weddings of Alienage Elves differed from those of humans, who tended to place the ring on the fourth finger of the bride's left hand. But the index finger was considered closest to the heart. She was grateful to Boann both for considering them worthy to have a Chantry wedding and for respecting the unique cultural differences.
Boann's voice seemed to come from a long way off. "Milord Vaughan! This is an... unexpected surprise..."
"Sorry to interrupt, Mother, but we're having a party and we're dreadfully short of female guests."
Boann's voice was hushed, heavy with outrage.
"Milord...this is a wedding!"
"Ha! If you want to dress up your pets and have tea parties that's your business, but don't pretend this is a proper wedding."
Rillian felt angry...felt betrayed. Where was Rylock? She had invited her human friend and knew Rylock would not have stood for this. Rylock would have drawn her Sword of Mercy and shown Vaughan just what the Chantry did to blasphemers. But...no...Rylock had sent her apologies. Apparently, she had deemed it so much more important to hunt an escaped apostate named Anders than to attend a friend's wedding.
"Let's take those two...the one in the tight dress and... where's the bitch that bottled me?"
"Here, Lord Vaughan!" The lackey had grabbed Shianni's arms and this time she had no weapon to defend herself.
"Let me go, you stuffed shirt son of a …"
"Oh, I'll enjoy taming her! And where's the pretty bride?"
"I won't let them take you,"
Nelaros' words were solidarity, defiance, love...the Alpha male who would not be denied his ancient right to protect, defend...no matter how many people called him "knife-ear."
But Rillian's lessons in history had taught her something. Taught her "first rights" had been common enough in the days before King Calenhad had created the Landsmeet and given freeholders the power to defy kings. Before that, any noble had had the right to take a bride on her wedding day...giving her back to the groom the morning after. Such practices were still common in Orlais...even to human serfs. In Ferelden, humans were protected from such cruelty...but no-one had thought to include Elves. Rillian also knew Nelaros - unarmed and forbidden by Denerim law from bringing his blacksmith's hammer – would have no way to win.
"My body is not me...and I will have a whole lifetime to forget. Many children. Only...don't hold it against me after."
"Never. But I could not be who I am... the self I respect...and let them take you without a fight."
"You'll die."
Nelaros shrugged. "Then we'll have our children in the Golden City."
So Nelaros had died a hero...and Rillian, Shianni, Valora, Neria and Nesiara had woken in the cells.
Nesiara was on her knees, praying for a miracle.
Shianni was cynical. "I'd give real money if she'd shut up."
Valora...the bride whom Soris had been crass and blind enough to call plain... "you get a handsome hunk straight out of the dissonant verses and I get a little chantry mouse – life's not fair!" ...now revealed her strength. She was calm, resigned. "If we resist, it'll go badly for us. We'll take it as bravely as we can...take birthbane as soon as we can...and never speak of this again."
Rillian could not agree – she would fight and, after she lost, she would not take birthbane. For most of Denerim's Elves being an Andrastean was just another word for being respectable...but Rillian really believed. A half-human child would not be responsible for the sins of the father and she didn't care what the likes of Elva would say. She knew Nelaros' soul would understand. But fight she would...she could only hope to last long enough to buy time for Ser Otto and Mother Boann to invoke Chantry authority...to get here with an armed escort and put a stop to this filth before they got Neria...
"Hello wenches...we're your escorts to Vaughan's little party."
Rillian spat at the nearest shem. Like a lazy silver coin, the globule landed on his face and he punched her. She staggered...fell...rose to her feet with a wicked grin. "Now I'm damaged goods."
"I suppose that's what happens when you try to teach whores some respect."
"Now...you grab the little flower cowering in the corner. Horace and Tomas will take the homely bride and the drunk."
With her friends taken, Rillian guessed the man who wanted to teach her respect had other plans. Good. She just needed him to get a bit closer.
"Come closer," she murmured, "I want you near me. I want to touch you for Nelaros."
"Yes," the soldier smirked, "I can tell you are a scrapper. Too wild for the likes of that dead knife-ear to tame. Not to worry...I'll be up to the task."
He loomed over her. She smelled shem flesh...the fish he had had for dinner...sour ale and meat. She didn't flinch...let him come close enough she could put her arms around him.
Then she kicked out...slicing into the femoral artery where no amount of surgery will stop the bleeding. Adaia had taught her never to leave herself defenseless. Her mother's boots were beautiful...and carried spring-loaded blades that cut like a knife through butter. After Habren had fired Rillian – for letting her mouth overload her brain – her years as a docker, surrounded by human men who were much bigger and allowed to carry weapons, had reinforced this lesson. Rillian had been searched for obvious weapons on entering the cells – but not stripped. That was a pleasure the guards were saving for Vaughan.
She left him to die, slowly, and padded along the hallway. She made sure to take his knife but didn't bother with the rest of his armour or his sword...they were too cumbersome and heavy, and she had never been trained in their use. And no-one would believe an Elf could be a guard. Even if she covered ears and features with a helm, no-one hired guards who were barely five foot five. An Elven woman leaving the cells with a few bloodstains...that was a common enough sight. Vaughan was known to let his favourite guards play with his food.
She headed for the kitchen because it was where Vaughan would be having the food brought up for his little 'party'. Her time as Lady Habren's maid helped her. When you had seen one noble's estate you had seen them all. Only the human undercook clocked her...but his Elven servant snuck up behind him and bottled him.
"That shem's had it coming for years," he grinned. "I'm Adwen, the undercook's assistant. You're one of the girls they brought in? They took the others to Lord Vaughan's room. You should hurry. He's not...gentle...with women. Now - if you'll excuse me – I need to be out of here before the storm breaks."
The boy left quickly...making sure to relieve the undercook of a few copper coins and steal a large hock of ham on the way out.
Vaughan's room was protected by guards.
"Where did you get a weapon, Elf? You'd better talk quick, scum!"
Rillian's thrown dagger ensured the man would never talk again. But the move was costly – the other man grabbed her from behind. She struggled...but she couldn't kick from that angle and she wasn't strong enough to free herself.
Then her opponent gasped as a sword found his spine...blood fountained...staining her dress...she managed to twist away just in time...and found herself face to face with Soris. He was wielding a sword far finer than anything she had seen in the Alienage.
"Where did you..."
"The Gray Warden...Duncan...gave it to me. Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
She shook her head. "We need to find Shianni! And Neria and Valora and Nesiara," she added guiltily.
The remaining two guards traded a glance.
"See. Told you there'd be more. Elves run in packs, like rodents."
Rillian recognized the speaker as the shem who had killed Nelaros. She cracked blood loose from her own lips and knew she had bared her teeth. "I'm going to enjoy this."
"Stupid bitch. I'll show you how men fight."
Rillian leapt aside with a slash of her knife to the man's neck - he wore a helm but the chin-strap was loose – and brought her bladed boot at a knee to bring the big man down.
He fell heavily...rolled up.
Rillian must adopt Adaia's tactics – the training of a bard. The human had all the advantages – the weight, the size, the armour, sword and shield.
The bull charge swerved with deceptive speed, anticipating the direction of Rillian's evasion. Gauntleted hands grasped her by the neck and a knee caught her between the legs. It wasn't the same agony a man would feel...but it hurt.
Rillian rolled end over end and crawled to get away, scuttling around a corner as the human pursued, sparing no thought for dignity.
She clamped down on the pain with all of her bardic training and all of her will. It was not enough – but it would have to do.
She gained her feet. The reptile part of her brain dispassionately reported minute odds that she and Soris – who had never been trained to use a sword – would leave the estate alive. And she knew her calculator was right. But it was also wrong.
They would win.
They had to win.
She threw her knife at the slit in the man's helm, aiming for the eyes.
The first thing Rillian saw inside Vaughan's chambers was the blue glass wine jug Shianni had hit him with. It lay on its side, broken into a thousand cyan shards. One of Shianni's shoes lay next to it. Rillian heard the wrongness like an orchestra's strings sliding into dissonant minors. There was a strong odour in the room: human sweat and sex and iron.
She hadn't known blood had a smell. A vestigial, animal part of her recognized it. Feeling no more control over her hand than as if it had been a fluttering bird tethered to her wrist, she struggled to raise the knife. She felt light, as if her insides had been paralyzed and replaced with helium. As if the strings binding her to the world she knew were about to be cut and she would float away, untethered. With each step into the room her weight lessened.
The first blood was Shianni's handswipe on the white wall. The second were twin prints on the floor, where Vaughan and his animals had held her down. The third was a pool...the carpet was mushy with it, squelching beneath Adaia's boots. The knowledge Shianni was still alive came to Rillian...that, and the fragments of what she must do. There was a wound under Shianni's jaw that whistled softly, three...no, four times.
Breathing.
Therefore.
And a great pool of blood like a continent between her legs.
And a voice she didn't recognize as her own was saying, "Oh sweet fucking Maker. Shianni. Saint fucking Andraste help her."
"My my. What have we here?"
"Don't worry – we'll make short work of these two," Vaughan's friend tried to reassure him...somewhat overconfidently for a man whose weapons were across the chamber and whose trousers were around his ankles.
Even Vaughan found that unlikely. He spoke to his fellow rapist as if the man were a slow-witted child.
"They're covered with enough blood to fill a tub. What do you think that means?" He turned to Rillian. "Alright. Let's not be hasty here. Surely we can talk this over?"
"I don't answer rape with words. Or debate with scum not fit to have looked on her. There is no right or wrong in Denerim beyond power. So, if you have the courage of your evils, answer me with your sword – or your body."
Rillian felt the shem's disgust to be forced to address an Elf like a person...saw him look from one to the other and decide that Soris – poor, frightened Soris - would be the more reasonable of the two.
"Think for a minute. Kill me and you ruin more lives than just your own. By dawn, the city will run red with Elven blood. Here's our situation. We fight here and perhaps you could manage to kill me. My father won't let that go. Your pigsty of an Alienage will be burned to the ground. Or...you turn and walk away. With thirty pieces of silver added to your purses. You take that money and leave Denerim tonight. No repercussions, and you can go wherever you like."
Soris turned to Rillian. There was self-disgust in his voice, but there was also a resigned acceptance of the facts. "They are three men, and two of them are armed. Even if we kill them, we will damn our families."
As Soris spoke Rillian's knife was already flying. It buried itself to the hilt in the throat of the naked man. He gasped out his life like a dying pig.
"I always regret talking to knife ears!" Vaughan shouted. "Jonaley...gut her!"
Soris got between Rillian and Jonaley with the fierce determination of a man past his limits.
Rillian rolled behind Vaughan and kicked as hard as she could into his left leg.
Vaughan screamed and swung his sword, his expression fierce. To her he seemed to move in slow-motion. Soris withdrew the knife she had killed the naked man with, threw it, and she caught it in mid-air. Her mother's lessons in juggling had not been wasted.
Blood spurted from Vaughan's leg. Rillian couldn't get close enough to use the knife. His sword cut arcs of defense. He had been trained to kill, like all Ferelden nobles.
She threw a handful of dust into his face – the most basic and dirty trick in a gutter-fighter's repertoire - then slammed her knee into his groin. His face was growing pale with the shock of the blood loss.
His grip loosened for a moment and she pulled free. He grabbed her again, but she hit him with her own head. Pain shocked through her. Vaughan was grabbing her arms, his hands impossibly strong. She pulled the knife free then brought it down again, this time catching Vaughan in the shoulder. He rolled away too late. He lay still and Rillian bent over him, about to bring the blade down into his head, when he swung around, clutching his sword. The broad, flat side caught her, and she staggered sideways, falling to her knees.
The air had left her. She saw visions of her mother, Nelaros, Shianni and dizziness overwhelmed her. The shem would win, because predators always did.
Not this time. She looked up, saw the sword coming again, and shoved her dagger forward into the open space under his arm. The blade dug into his side just above the hip, and he grunted with pain. He had dropped the sword and was reaching for it. She stabbed at his shoulders, his arms, making slight contact. He grabbed at her, turning his attention away from the sword. The confidence had left his face.
He grabbed for her wrist. She dodged, brought the blade back, then at his face. He moved, but not fast enough. The dagger sliced through his left eye. He screamed. He brought his hands up to his face, then held them back, as if he couldn't believe what she had done. His movements became more frantic, more hurried, but the strength was leaving him.
"For my mother."
She reached inside his tunic, his trousers. She was going to destroy this man, make him pay for everything he had done. Rillian had never seen this done...City Elves were not farmers... and though she had heard rumours the Chantry did it to preserve the voices of their male singers she had never believed it. She had never touched a man this way, and now her husband was dead there would be no wedding night.
Nevertheless.
She grabbed them and cut. He screamed again...less like a man, more like a beast.
She said, "Duncan told me the King's army will lose at Ostagar. Your father is going to die. Your line will die with you."
He was beyond hearing. Rillian pulled the blade free and brought it down again and again and again, until the lower half of his body was mush. She was drenched in blood as if in full baptism and it felt good; it felt right.
"That was for Shianni."
His body was covered with blood. He didn't move much. Only his right eye watched her, and she through she saw comprehension. She put the tip of the blade against his remaining eye.
"And this," she said as she thrust, "is for Nelaros."
Rillian's actions had damned her people...the Alienage had been locked down tight and Rendon Howe had arrived to 'restore order.' She had given herself up to protect them...but the Gray Warden Duncan had conscripted her. Instead of the Joining there should have been with Nelaros – hearts and souls and bodies – the Joining which would have resulted in children and grandchildren in the intricate and ceremonial dance of life...this Joining had brought death.
She would never have a child, she walked on death's business, she carried her own death inside her.
... She stared down into the goblet. The liquid was thick, like tar. An evening breeze made fat, lazy bubbles crawl thickly along the surface like boiling pitch. They opened like greedy little mouths, then collapsed to nothingness. Rillian raised it to her lips. It crawled down her throat, hot as lava, a salty tang that carried images of predation, of unity, a vast low hum of chittering voices, a silver song pure as starlight. A burning tree reached searing roots inside her, building to a sheet of blind, incandescent flame. She trembled, mouth gaping in the slow birth of a mind-emptying howl. Warden...
The tainting of her blood had been the only thing that saved her when Rendon Howe had tried to violate her with Blood Control...
...Howe beat her with the delight of a monstrous child, using the flat of the blades and then his fists, shouting encouragement when she struck back. The room was a shifting, sliding chaos; the black shadow writhed: everywhere at once, never there to hit. When she fell, he stepped back - slowly, savouring the hunt - and put the swords down. He lifted her to her feet by her hair, encouraged her to strike at him again, and when she did, he let her drop. She spat at him. Her last blurred, collapsing image was of him straddling her, one fist raised like a cobra...
But it had not saved her from the Architect's experimentation.
... The Architect reached out with slender arms that tapered to long elegant fingers: pale, attenuated like the branches of a dying tree. The alien hands, with the light, solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, rested on her naked thigh.
The absence of sensation made the touch more dreadful than if felt. It showed her that the tubes within her captive flesh had already pumped their poison into her veins. The nightmare she still desperately denied at heart had annexed her body while she - holding head and arms free - had already more than half-drowned in its mortal paralysis. There, from her chest on down, lay her nightmare part: a nothingness freely possessed by an unspeakability.
She could hardly draw breath. The choking air was thick with taint - the air of nightmare that was in league with him. And this was worse than Howe. The end result echoed the feculent splashing and hissing she heard below.
Maker. Help me. Anything but that. Anything at all. Just not that filth...PLEASE! ...
After the Blight, in the Vinmark Mountains, she had vivisected Corypheus...all strictest scholarship at first... scientific curiosity about the darkspawn reproductive system. It had soon morphed to something darker.
...Rillian swallowed hard, and turned back to the imprisoned Magister. Yes, she was indeed about to do this. She raised Stillicide, the silverite dagger traced with lyrium runes, sank its point beneath the chin and began a long, gently-sawing incision that opened Corypheus from throat to groin.
Corypheus tensed as though shot through with pain but made no sound. She felt the hatred of a Lord for a slave performing an unforgiveable insult – and proceeded to the internal exam with a vague eagerness for the darkspawn's fragmentation.
Her hands were fleet, exact; intricately testing the darkspawn's biology as her fingers had once explored a keyboard for its latent melodies. The creature's heart should have been all but hidden between its lungs. Instead, it was fully exposed, the lungs merely wrinkled lumps less than a third of their natural bulk. The taint had stopped Corypheus needing to rely on air – which explained how the creature had been kept alive in this airless prison for millennia.
Rillian's face ran with sweat. Her work was done with surreal speed, the laminae of flesh and bone recoiling smoothly beneath the metal that was toxic to tainted creatures and her own unerring hands. She already knew what the stomach would show. In the Deep Roads, darkspawn did not eat; sustained by taint just as the magisters had been sustained by lyrium as they walked bodily in the Fade.
Rillian hesitated, unwilling to complete the examination. She remembered what she had done to Vaughan, remembered looking into Mother Boann's eyes as she gave her peace. Then she looked again at the knife in her hand. Her hand felt empty of all technique. Its one impulse was to slash, cleave, obliterate this monster. She must do this, or flee. There was no middle ground.
"I will examine him," she said...
Nightmare showed her the slow descent from victim to abuser.
She hated them all: Vaughan, Howe, The Architect...the Magisters Sidereal and all who enabled them. What heaven it would be to get revenge on these monsters! In a just world, she would be given the opportunity, before she died, to tie the Magisters Sidereal to slabs and do a bit of experimenting of her own. They could watch, tongueless, as she carved their genitals away. Their anuses would clench as she penetrated them with iron skewers. Their eyes would blink blood as she sculpted mortal faces for them...
...As First Warden, Rillian decided which of the traitors – far enough into the Calling it was possible - would become Broodmothers. When still herself, Clarel had agreed it was the only justice for her crimes. By any means necessary. No different to breeding a lab animal to produce more experimental subjects. The darkspawn were kept quarantined, of course, but, really, using them as test subjects for white phosphorous or its more deadly successor, sarin, was only sensible. She wasn't cruel like the Architect – she allowed Clarel to hear the Song of Razikale and Lucasan – was it really evil if the victim saw it as beautiful?
The others – the transitionals – raged in their slumber night after night. Sometimes she wanted to comfort them – she remembered how horrible it had been to hear Urthemiel during the Fifth Blight – but she reminded herself a scientist had to keep a certain distance from her subjects. And, anyway, these had chosen to be Wardens. They didn't want fake sympathy. What they wanted was a chronicler of their descent into a hell of their own choosing. They chose it so others wouldn't have to. And, in that role, she was more than willing to accommodate them.
Nonetheless, she sometimes felt a twinge of guilt. She was a parasite who grew famous off a malady that afflicted them while she remained immune. The part she played was that of a voyeur. And...it was within her power to save them. She had put Felix through the Joining...she had cured Rylock with a single drop of her own blood.
She could only wonder, then, at her own sickness. Why, like some depraved deity, she elected to let them fall...
The nightmare of the future dissolved like a dream on waking, but the taste, the smell, the echo of the whole thing was deadly. Rillian looked around her. The sight of Rylock and Fenris and Alistair brought a kind of death, a sense she had been exposed as the monster she had always been. Rylock killed maleficarum clinically, quickly, painlessly – yes, even the one who had used his own children in his experiments, and the one who had trapped the spirit of the woman he had 'loved' inside her own animate corpse. Rillian knew without having to ask Rylock would kill Erimond with a single clean strike. Because she was not like the monsters she fought – because her aim was to protect non-mages not seek vengeance – because justice belonged to the Maker.
And Fenris...no matter his own monumental suffering...had killed Danarius and Hadriana quickly; had never even wished to do the same to his abusers. When Danarius had ordered him to torture enemies he had felt triumph – the one and only time a slave could pay back a Magister – but only when they had been abusers and still with a kind of warped sense he was exacting justice for his master.
Fenris would despise her...Rylock would despise her. Alistair...
"I'm just like Erimond," she whispered, "Vaughan...Howe...The Architect...they made me just like him."
"At least you didn't betray your husband to a demon," Fenris offered in rough comfort.
"But I did. In the Broken Circle, I married Sloth. It wore Nelaros' face and I wanted to believe it was Nelaros' soul. I... I let it touch me. I betrayed both Alistair and Nelaros."
"At least you would have fought for your child, however conceived. I don't approve of the way you killed Vaughan and vivisected Corypheus but you are not like Erimond. Anyway, if you feel you need to, just confess it and you can meet the Maker with a clean slate."
"There is no Chantry sister here...I guess you're the next best thing."
Rillian was winding Rylock up but Rylock took her seriously.
As if coming to a decision, she said, "The Templar Rule says we are allowed to do it in extremis. I am not worthy but...there is no-one else here. Ego te absolvo."
Finally, Rillian dared meet her husband's eyes.
"You didn't do it," Alistair said firmly, "Maybe only because Corypheus broke free and you had to kill him but you never touched him in that way. Everything else was your fear of the future. You're not going to do any of that. I trust you to be First Warden. I trust you with my life and my conscience."
Rillian gaped at her husband. "It's a good thing I've known you so long. Otherwise I'd have to assume you've lost your mind."
Alistair chortled. "You mean, since you know me, you don't have to assume I've lost my mind? You can take it for granted?"
Unable to preserve an appropriately dire expression, Rillian flashed a grin.
"Giving you my utmost wisdom," Alistair stated, "I would say at this point anything can happen. With our luck it probably will."
Rillian giggled. "Well, that's alright. 'Anything' is what's been happening ever since I met you."
Alistair responded with a chuckle and a bow. "Darling, you have an admirable gift for understatement."
Rillian shrugged. "I guess we're lucky. If weird shit stopped happening, we might get confused."
"Speak for yourself. Confusion is my natural state." Alistair feigned puzzlement. "Or... I think so."
Gazing out at the raw Fade, Rillian sighed happily. "No wonder I married you."
Ser Otto dreamed in colour.
Since the Denerim Cabal who had preyed on the Alienage had darkened his world in a burst of flame, his dreams were of a new order. No narrative, no music, no faces, just forces...as if giant colours or weights drenched or tore him. A colossal wave at his back – a wall of black oil a mile high, with eight appendages that writhed like tendrils of smoke – advanced towards him. Its shadow crept towards a cool silver goblet in front. The goblet was the one Rillian had given him when he Joined. Drink deep...or taste not. He had not seen the golden chalice or the thick, tarry liquid. He had only heard the silver song, like starlight...the lyrium that was forcing his body to accept taint.
He had wanted to bring the taint inside himself. He had hoped, that way, he could still communicate with the woman he loved.
But Rillian had told him a truth that had broken his heart.
"Did you dream?" she asked him softly. "I had terrible dreams after my Joining."
"I thought...perhaps...I might dream of her."
Rillian had a lump like a huge ball of grief struck in her throat. Despite his own pain, Ser Otto had not closed his heart to his friend. How must it feel, to have to deliver news in a lethal bouquet?
"The Architect made Boann incapable of hearing the Song. He didn't even leave her that. Not even that."
Rillian broke down – pressed her young face (how old was she? – barely launched on adulthood, victimized by a disease she had no hope of understanding) against the taut muscles of his shoulders and wept.
"Sorry...sorry...sorry."
Ser Otto sat and rocked her, and finally held her hand.
They had been friends a long time. It had been Rillian – a fifteen-year-old docker who had poked her nose where she shouldn't have – who had warned Rylock and Otto of the cabal of Tevinter Blood Mages who were hiding in plain sight in Denerim...preying on Elves who would never be missed. Knight Captain Rylock and Knight Templar Otto had taken them on...the only two Templars who actually cared about defending Elves; rather than, say, locking apprentices in Circles.
After the leader of the Cabal had sent molten tendrils through his veins, burned eyes and fingertips and nose to nothing, Ser Otto had been sent to the Alienage. Knight Commander Tavish had not wanted him to remain as a reminder to the young recruits of the cost of service. His task had been to escort Mother Boann to distribute alms...though it had been she who had steadied him rather than the other way round. One morning Boann had been late – attending a birth - and the Arl's soldiers had snickered at his faltering steps. A stranger had offered an arm. Unlike Boann's scents of roses and violets and lilies, this person had smelled of salt and brine, her hands callused from lifting crates. Shamefully, he had been embarrassed to be aided by an Elf...Elves were supposed to be the objects of charity to a knight, not the other way round.
"I don't need pity," he had snapped – for he had been very afraid of kindness back then.
"Just as well," came the musical contralto voice, "I had to waste mine on those ignorant shems who never learned basic manners."
The response had startled him into becoming her friend. Thereafter, they had sat together beneath the Vhenadahl when she came off shift, in the darkness that made them equals, and shared stories. Sometimes they had been joined by Mother Boann - who was teaching Rillian to read common and Ser Otto to read Braille – and (very occasionally) by Knight Captain Rylock – who was the only person who confided in Otto and shared reports with him as though he were still on active duty. It had been Rylock who had pulled Ser Otto from the flames – her own burns testament to this – and Rillian loved them for saving her people.
"Knight Commander Rylock came to see me. She told me something Boann had once said to her. That the very worst thing that could happen to us would be to prove unworthy of the Maker. That anything else is just hard...and hard things can always be endured. Rylock believes it. I am not sure, now. What happened to Boann seems to prove there are griefs beyond any imaginable embrace. That suffering can be pointless and do no one any good."
"I think Rylock is right," Rillian said softly, "Because the only deeds we will take with us into the Golden City are the ones we have committed. Not what was done to us. When we give Boann the Sword of Mercy her soul will rise to Him untouched. Guiltless. She will go to Him as if she had sloughed off a defiled, wet, clinging garment and He will take her in his arms."
Ser Otto could believe that when it came to himself. His own sufferings: the blindness that made people say insulting things in his presence (as though a blind man lost hearing too, or wasn't man enough to matter) the days when he was in intense pain…the destroyed skin carrying echoes of the burning as though it were ongoing – he accepted as a necessary part of something chosen long before. He had chosen to be a Templar…to protect the innocent from maleficarum…he could hardly complain it had happened to him and not the Elves being sold to Tevinter!
But that reasoning collapsed when he thought of what Boann had suffered. The violation by darkspawn...the grotesque transformation into a bloated monster in agonizing pain, mute and limbless, its decaying bulk crushing broken legs that oozed rot. Its enormous belly gravid with futile multitudes of briefly animate trash. To be a monster – to know one is a monster; feel it in every cell – and not be able to stop it.
What was pain and disfigurement compared to that?
He recalled how it had given him comfort to believe the fact he could still cast Templar powers after lyrium withdrawal had proven the Maker existed. Now it disgusted him such thinking was even possible. If there were a Maker, he hated the creature for the suffering He had inflicted on the woman he...still...loved.
...You broke her body on the rack while she still wore it. Is death your only blessing?...
But it was more likely the spirit posing as the Divine was correct. His powers didn't come from the Maker...he was casting from taint, like an emissary. There were not – had never been – any holy warriors. All the familiar and fundamental frameworks were redundant: space, time, cause, effect. He was granted (in this thing that was neither movement nor state) the license to receive pure, disinterested information.
There were not – had never been – any people. Any souls. He and Boann would be immortal only through taint. All the rest...the structures of cells that believed themselves conscious...that wove themselves, wrapped themselves in memories and desires and ideas...believed they knew themselves, were no more than a succession of habits forced on to an experience which was chaotic. Which depended on bone and skin and blood and brain chemistry.
...There aren't any philosophical questions. There aren't ideas. There's just the presence or absence of pain. There's just whether you keep or lose your legs, womb, mouth...
Soul was a lie taught by the Chantry and worn by its priests like a costume to amuse children.
Taint had made such a reality fester into the terrible phenomenon called consciousness. Producing conscious vectors who could see it and, seeing it, recoil in loathing.
If Boann lived only as a collection of unliving and undying cells (Rillian had told him Weisshaupt could keep taint alive, forever, in petri dishes) then he had mistaken a vector for a person. There were not, had never been, any people. Taint only revealed the vacuity already there. The uninfected were simply those not yet unmasked. All equally bankrupt, just some not yet declared.
And that wasn't the worst thing. The worst was both Rylock and Rillian (who were fierce Andrasteans) believed the Children the Architect had bred from Duncan and Boann – in the horror beneath Ishal - were human beings with human souls. Certainly they had human faces. Rylock and Rillian believed the grotesque bodies evidence of the sickness of taint rather than of being a different species. Otto couldn't bear to speculate. He didn't know what would be worse – that these obscene creatures who would never sleep, never dream, never love; never know a day without pain – had been gifted with human souls, or that they had not. Who would consider such a thing? Only people like Rylock and Rillian, who would have truth at any price.
Rillian had killed The Children nonetheless. "I did not have the right. But I had the duty."
When everything else is gone, duty remains...