Anders' clinic had the enviable position of being near the highest part of the Upperdark, which meant that a bit of sunlight streamed into his ward's part of the former Tevinter mine. Most wards were not so fortunate. It took a dwarf to feel truly at home down there in Anders' opinion, which must be why the Carta had such a strong presence throughout Darktown.
He skirted the wards where the Carta held overt control – Varric's ongoing trade dispute might make the Carta problematic for a known associate of his – following the escapees' directions toward the Middledark ward most of them had fled. The directions were simple enough – out and down, right, left, right, left and down, right, right, etc.
The farther down into Darktown he went, leaving the Upperdark and memories of sunlight behind, the tighter the turns grew, the narrower and damper the halls. Anders had always hated the phosphorescent lichen that grew down in the Middledark and Lowerdark. It brought to mind unpleasant memories of the Deep Roads and broodmothers. Add in the robes he had not worn since he was a Gray Warden and the memories they stirred, and the mage was in a pensive mood by the time he finally wound his way down to the Middledark ward he was seeking.
The wards in the Middledark were more like collections of campsites than neighborhoods. Families or groups of friends or allies would claim a space, or sometimes if they were lucky, an alcove, in the former mine, and do what they could to make it a home. For the sake of keeping the air breathable, wards shared just a few cooking fires. Darktown dwellers had to rely on layers and layers of clothes to try to stay warm in the pervasive subterranean chill, even while Kirkwall sweltered above.
After being almost unbearably hot for weeks, Anders' arms and bare chest were prickled with gooseflesh. He rubbed his hands over his arms while he walked from campsite to campsite looking for survivors, the sick, or even bodies, in all cases finding none.
The air had a sharp bite to it that made his throat and eyes burn. The odor overrode Darktown's usual stink of unwashed bodies, cooking fires, makeshift privies, mold, and other filth with something that both as a mage and as a host to a spirit from beyond the Veil, Anders recognized as darkest magic.
For the first time in days he wished that Hawke was around. He liked and respected the man, but rarely was his first thought, "I wish Hawke were here." Perhaps because where Hawke went, trouble followed.
He wished Hawke were there. With Hawke and a couple of friends, they could face almost anything. As it was, Anders could think of no one in Kirkwall that he could turn to with any certainty of getting the kind of help he needed.
The reek that rode the air grew worse when he approached the stairs that would lead down into the Lowerdark ward that the refugees had agreed had been decimated by the strange gas.
Anders went back to a campsite and rummaged through the belongings scattered by its occupants' panicked flight. He briefly said a prayer directed to no deity in particular that they had escaped and had not been taken. He dropped a copper into the folds of a blanket and tore from it a strip of fabric. He poured some water from his canteen onto the cloth, wetting it before he wrapped it around his face to cover his mouth and nose.
It might help, it might not, but Anders was determined to investigate down the stairs before more time passed, and this was all the protection from lingering gas that he was going to get.
He leaned over the railing by the stairs that gave a view down into the Lowerdark, scanning the dimly-lit ward for signs of movement or life or the glowing fog, but he saw nothing other than abandoned belongings and guttering lanterns.
Staff in hand, he descended the stairs.
The Lowerdark housed no families. Anders took comfort in the fact that he was unlikely to find children's bodies in any of the campsites. However, as with the sites just up the stairs, he found no bodies at all.
He searched in a spiral that led deeper into the stricken ward, finding signs of struggle, of scuffles in the dirt, and once, a blood-soaked blanket, but not a single body.
His nerves sang with Justice's disquiet and with his own instincts' clamor that this wasn't a gang war or another disaster with Qunari saar-qamek gas. Though the description of green, glowing fog had stirred a thread of concern about the Qunari formula, the symptoms were wrong, the context was wrong, and the Qunari gas had not left behind the residue of blatant evil that he sensed here.
When he found the drag marks, his first thought was that something had decided humans were tasty and decided to stock its larder. His second thought was that he had spent far too long as a Gray Warden if that was his first thought. His third, and loudest thought was, Maker, why do bad things always decide to go do horrible things deep in the ground? Because, of course, the drag marks led to a side tunnel that sloped drastically downward from the Lowerdark ward.
He was no dwarf, but the tunnel looked newly opened. The edges of the opening were still shedding loose stones and dirt when Anders reached up to run his fingers over the rough cuts.
"Maker help fools and mad mages," he muttered to himself before calling light to the end of his staff and starting down the steep slope.
The tunnel lacked even the usual glowing lichen that lined most of the walls of the Middledark and Lowerdark passages. As he walked, occasionally he saw scattered refuse – a shoe, a hat, and once he picked up and sniffed the contents of a bottle that turned out to hold some execrable liquor that even the Hanged Man would not try to sell.
How far below Kirkwall the tunnel led, Anders could not tell. He did not have a dwarf's stone sense. All he knew was that it was too bloody far, and it was a good thing he was not claustrophobic, because sometimes he thought he could hear the ceiling shifting and groaning overhead.
He did not hear the soft patter of bare feet on stone until Fenris was almost on top of him.
The elf's lyrium glow was unmistakable, giving Anders pause for long enough for Fenris to slam him against the tunnel wall. The blow was hard enough for his vision to white out for a moment.
"Magister!"
Fenris' snarl rang in Anders' ears for just a moment before his vision shifted from white to sheets of red agony radiating from his chest. He didn't have to look down to know that Fenris' hand was currently phased through skin, muscle, and bone to wrap his heart in a cruel grip.
His heart stuttered in Fenris' grasp before the elf released it enough to allow it to beat.
"I should have known magisters would be behind this," the elf growled.
"Fen-ris!" Anders grated out past the agony that radiated out from his heart, turning his lungs to lead, shooting bolts of searing pain down his arms. His entire body had broken out in a cold sweat, making his hands slippery while he flailed for some purchase. "Not a magister."
Fenris scoffed and shook him, making him scream, since his handhold just happened to be Anders' heart. He would die. He would die and it would all be because this elf was too bloody stupid….
Fenris was saying something, and the agony was receding, just fractionally. The hand was out of his chest, resting on the smooth, unbroken skin over his heart, the sharp claws at the fingertips of his gauntlets digging in to remind Anders that it would take only a thought to end everything Anders had ever worked to be or do.
He grunted when Fenris backhanded him with his other hand, the makeshift cloth mask keeping the sharp edges at the gauntlet's knuckles from ripping open his face.
Giddily, he thought that maybe a facial scar would make him look dashing.
Justice, was not giddy.
"Enough!" The spirit blew past Anders' crumbled defenses to take control of their body, throwing Fenris back with a blast of raw Fade energy.
Dirt showered down on them, and Justice's shout echoed up and down the tunnel.
Enough! Enough! Enough… enough….
He tore the strip of cloth off his face and leveled a finger at Fenris where he had landed, bracing himself against the wall with one hand. "You will not—"
Fenris' gaze had fallen to Anders' chest, his shock at Justice's manifestation and Anders' identity turning to shock of a different sort. In the struggles, Anders' Tevinter Chantry amulet had worked its way loose from the strap where Anders had tucked it in the clinic. Now it hung gleaming in the blue-white glow from the elf's tattoos and Justice's Fade light.
Justice's admonition was lost in Fenris' scream of fury. He threw himself at the mage, forgoing his weapon in favor of fists.
He caught Anders' jaw with a blow that made his head ring, and staggered him. He stayed upright only because of the wall at his back.
Fenris gave him no time to focus a spell, backhanding him again, this time raking across his jaw with the sharp plates on the gauntlet's knuckles. Blood welled up in the cuts immediately, painting the right side of Anders jaw and throat with blood that soaked into his robe's high collar.
"Where—" Fenris hit him again.
"Did—" Another blow, and Anders staggered.
"You—"
Before Fenris could follow up with another punch or backhand, Justice flung him back with another blast of raw Fade energy, following it immediately with a more focused spell, channeling telekinetic energy into a cage that he held, quivering with the urge to let it crush Fenris in the bars of force.
"It was a gift, you idiot," Anders hissed past Justice's focus. It was his voice, without the reverberant undertones of the Fade spirit, despite the way his skin still crackled with incandescent fissures. They were like a peek through the Veil into the Fade, and cast a light that strangely matched Fenris'. "From Hawke!"
"Liar!" Fenris lunged against the bars, drawing lines of blood in his own skin for his effort, although the drain of maintaining the cage against Fenris' lyrium-augmented strength staggered Anders.
He could not maintain the hold much longer before he would have to start cannibalizing his own life force for mana. It was either make the maddened elf see reason, or likely die.
"Hawke gave it to me, just like a friend in Amaranthine gave me the robe." He was talking fast and skipped the part of about the friend in Amaranthine being the Hero of Ferelden. Fenris would never believe that detail and then it would all be over in a bloody, heart-crushing rush. "I've got refugees from the gas in my clinic, one puked on my coat, and this is all I had. I'm here to find out what's happening!"
Fenris had stopped struggling and turned his head away from Anders.
"Are you listening to me?" Anders hissed, just to keep from shouting.
"Shut up," Fenris snapped. "And let me out."
Anders frowned and shook his head. "Not until you swear you aren't going to do that fisting thing again." He rubbed a hand over his chest. "That bloody well hurt!"
"Mage!" Fenris turned a fierce snarl on Anders. "Let me out now or we both die!"
Anders opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it closed and slowly, with a mounting sense of dread, cocked his head to listen.
Then he released Fenris from the force cage and fumbled for a lyrium vial from his belt, cursing under his breath.
From farther down the tunnel came the sound of running feet and rattling armor.