Chapter 5
"That was definitely a thump."
"A thump? No. It was more of a boom."
"Does it matter?" the third voice asked. "I mean really?"
"You're very high-strung for a mage, did you know that?" the second voice commented archly.
"Fibre," the first voice said with a knowing, sympathetic nod. "It's so important in a modern mage's diet."
As the three women continued to 'discuss' the present situation, Alistair shifted on his stony seat. The room shook again, dust raining from the elderly rafters far, far above. If this lot came down, Alistair mused. We'd all be pretty thin at the end of it all…His vote was for getting out of here as soon as possible, but the…locals were being – perhaps rightly – cautious about letting a few strange people who'd just appeared out of thin air released into the general populace willy-nilly.
"And you say you're not the King of Ferelden?"
Alistair stopped himself from rolling his eyes in time, sliding them sideways instead to regard the heavily armoured individual close by. He'd remembered this one. From his own time and universe and as living with Merran, crossing the Fade several times over and surviving death by Archdemon tended to provide the kind of life-instruction a person didn't normally obtain from mainstream education, he was not fazed in the least about where, why and how they were where they were. Ser Cullen. Templar. Although the Cullen he'd remembered had been a wild-eyed young man with spots and a fetish for chocolate and turning unwary Apprentices into colanders. This Cullen…well, Alistair told himself. Clearly, this Cullen hadn't gone all lyrium-rage at the Mage's Tower, unless in this reality killing mages was a career-enhancing activity.
Well, Knight Commander and married to a mage? He…couldn't be all bad. What was the mage's name? Diana Amell? The only Amell he'd met so far who appeared to be sane. Ish. It was still early days after all and to be quite honest it wasn't as if Merran was really cuckoo. Ish. It was just that…spend a prolonged amount of time in her company and you found yourself turning slightly barking mad. Or completely barking mad. Unless you were already off your tree in the first place and then her sanity tended to rub off on you until you thought you were going mad. Or un-mad in this case. It was always best not to think at all, really.
"Ish," Alistair muttered.
"Of course I meant in your…reality, I suppose you could call it," Cullen sighed, finding a space next to the Warden Commander. "Spend enough time in the company of any Amell, I've found, one simply learns to…accept."
"Or go slightly insane," Alistair murmured.
Cullen cleared his throat in half-embarrassment. "Already did that," he explained. "Risks of being married to an Amell. Uh…" He paused. "I mean 'benefit'," he corrected himself. "Of course I mean benefit."
The entire room shook this time, the walls audibly rumbling. Or the ground. It was something. Something that sounded like an earthquake, except localised. And…slightly aerial. As though the shaking was not coming from beneath, but from above. The Knight Commander frowned. "That was not…" he began, when Alistair noticed the little dwarf girl was missing from the room. He'd just gotten to his feet to say so, when she came running back; bouncing up and down and waving her arms in excitement.
"Hey Amellians!" she yelled. "You won't believe what I've just seen! A couple of dragons, knocking three types of crap out of each other!"
The three mages paused in their discussion to regard the vibrating dwarf. The taller mage; Alyce, knuckled her hips in disapproval. "Dagna…" she began. "Do I have to have that talk with you again about bad language?"
"Look, I said 'crap'," Dagna explained, casting her eyes upwards. "Not shit. If I said shit then you'd have cause to berate me but look, alright…Dragons. Dragons! Two of them!"
"Are you sure they're not trying to make another dragon?" Merran enquired, as the room shook even more violently this time.
"Well one of them was trying to bite the other dragon's head off."
"Some insects do that when they like each other…" Merran said thoughtfully. "Can't imagine it would be very much though. But…tasty!"
"And they're right on top of this area!" Dagna said even more loudly. "That's what causing these tremors".
"Must be damned big dragons." Alistair eyed the shaking ceiling. In tandem he and the Knight Commander got to their feet and began herding the mages towards the exit. Rapidly.
"Just out of interest," Alistair began conversationally, increasing his pace and all but shoving Merran into a sprint. "Where is this place?"
"Temple of Andraste," Cullen told him.
Alistair's eyes widened as the group emerged from the long, tunnel-like passageway to an area that seemed familiar to him. He cast a brief, speculative look at the open brazier in the centre of a cracked stone landing from which a wide staircase led down to what looked like the inside of a Chantry cathedral, except far more immense and filled with snow and icicles.
"In the…Frostbacks?" Alistair asked. "A village call Haven?"
"Yes," Cullen's eyebrows drew downwards. "Why do you ask?"
"Tell you outside!" Alistair informed him, gesturing the others down the staircase. "You'll laugh, really!"
The group burst out of the ornate metal doors, slowing pace only to pick their way carefully down the icy stone steps leading from the snowbound Temple. Guiding the mages like a couple of human-shaped levers in a pinball machine – Dagna tucked safely under Alistair's arm – they made it half way down the steep slope towards the wooden building, once used as a Chantry, when a burst of flame skimmed the tops of the trees close over their heads. They threw themselves into the icy mud, wincing and grimacing at the ear-piercing roar of a very, very angry dragon.
The furious beat of wings sent a couple of the trees nearby toppling over, missing them by mere metres. The mages, Templars and dwarf scrambled back to their feet – almost too late – another stream of flame seared the air.
"I can do this!"
Alistair peered from beneath his arm, realising with horror, Merran standing a little way apart, raising her hands…
"Zza…" She didn't get to finish her spell. Claws plucked her right off the mountain pathway. One moment she was standing before them all, mouth crooked downwards in determination. The next, she was a dwindling speck in the sky, suspended between two dragon legs.
A cry of rage ripped from the Warden Commander and he began sprinting down the mountain, metal-shod feet slipping and sliding along the icy ground.
"Alyce!" Dagna tried to keep up as best as she could. "Do something! Anything!"
"Right!" Alyce nodded even as she ran, long legs eating up the distance after the Warden Commander, but she was soon flagging. Alistair, powered by panic and used to years of chasing down Darkspawn, kept going. Alyce on the other hand, clutched at her burning chest, her nose and tips of her ears as red as a freshly cut beetroot.
"I ca…cah…" Doubling over, she paused to catch her breath; difficult in the thin mountainous air where it was hard to breathe in the first place.
Footsteps crunched to a halt beside her. "I can't even chuck a fireball at it from this distance," Diana Amell grumbled.
"At a dragon?" Alyce gasped. "They love fire."
"Not when it goes down their throats," Diana replied with a frown, eyes narrowing. "Still…"
When the Knight Commander arrived, the remaining Amells were surprised to see Dagna riding piggyback style on the Templar's back. "Whoa…." The dwarf commanded, then: "Whoargh!"
"Whoargh?" Diana blinked.
Dagna merely pointed. What appeared to be empty sky – give or take a few wispy clouds – had at first a tiny dot in it. A dot that seemed to be growing in size. Very quickly.
"It's uh, coming back?" Dagna said hopefully.
"Do you think we should…?" Alyce began – unnecessarily – as the group had resumed their chase down the steep hill into the village at the edge of a misty lake.
"There!" Dagna pointed out – again, unnecessarily – the shape of the Warden Commander standing uncertainly on the rickety boat landing. The water around the rotting wooden pilings surged upwards as something rose out of the ice and frozen weed. Alistair backed away slowly, hands held defensively in front of him. The shape that emerged out of the water was…not a dragon, but something entirely different.
It was greenish, due in part to the debris it had picked up from the lake. It had wings like a dragon and talons like a dragon. Its tail was forked, also very much like a dragon. There however, was where any likeness to a dragon ended.
"Is that a…?" Dagna squinted.
In place of scales, it was covered in feathers.
"Looks like a…" Alyce cocked her head to the side.
In place of a fanged snout, was a cruelly hooked beak.
"Well, wax my head and call me a billiard ball…" Cullen might have been heard to murmur.
And in that cruelly hooked beak was a…It sprang forward at the Warden Commander, bottom wiggling in a way that reminded one of a mabari. A mabari that was rather pleased with itself. Wings flapping, it shook itself; a sort of whole, alternating body rotation starting from the tip of its beak to the end of its forked tail. Again, rather like a mabari. A wet one. Then, lowering its head, it spat something large, horny and bloody at Alistair's feet, causing the Grey Warden to recoil with a shout of disgust.
"Is that a…?" Dagna peered over Cullen's head.
"It looks like a…" Alyce wrinkled her nose.
"Urgh," Diana curled her upper lip. "That's…disgusting."
"Could use that as a billiard ball…" Cullen began, to find three sets of eyes turning to him in a way that made him wish he'd never learned to speak as a child. "Well," there was nothing left really, except to retreat as gracefully as he could. "If one had a very…large billiard table."
"I'd hate to see the size of the cue," Dagna gave herself a shake, as if attempting to rid herself of the unpromising vision that appeared in her head. "That is a griffon right?" she asked, speaking aloud the Word that all were thinking but none dared to voice. "I mean," she continued. "I know they're reported to be extinct. Last one eaten by a Grey Warden in the Long Winter of Thaw Post There Doesn't Appear to Be a Blight Forthcoming And We Appear to Be A Tad Redundant What A Shame…or so I heard anyway. Maybe. In some…obscure, unverified manuscript that no one's ever heard of." She straightened her arms, pulling her thoughts together. "But I've seen woodcuts and so forth and that looks like a griffon to me."
"Who just ate a dragon," Diana added. Helpfully.
"Well, part of a dragon," Alyce clarified.
"Why is it trying to kiss the Warden Commander?" Cullen asked.
"Trying to make more griffons?" Dagna suggested.
"That's disgusting," Diana repeated.
"Do you think it might be…?" Dagna began.
"What…that?" Alyce tapped the end of her chin.
"Can the two of you please stop speaking in part sentences?" Diana sighed. "It's driving me insane. You." She pointed to the Knight Commander. "Don't speak at all. You're just confusing people. And hurting my head. Really. Stop."
"But it's so adorable," Dagna started up again, a twinkle in her eye, when the maybe-it's-a-griffon bounded up the hill towards them. The four of them recoiled, as it had picked up the remains of the dragon's severed head in its beak, depositing it at their feet. Or as close to their feet as possible as – as one – the four had retreated several steps back towards the village. As if the old rundown, falling-apart wooden buildings would give them any protection.
Which none of it would have.
In the least.
Again, the bottom wiggle.
"Uh…" Alistair approached from behind, spattered liberally with lake weed and dragon blood. "I think this is…Merran."
Alyce pointed. Dagna stared. Diana shook her head. Cullen, ever obedient, clasped his hands and silently mouthed a few lines from Revelations from the Chant of Light.
"She uh…transformed to fight the dragon and now – I suppose – can't turn herself back." There was a sigh in that statement, as if the Warden Commander was silently berating himself that he should have predicted something like this, knowing his fellow Grey Warden best, but in all the excitement, fatally missed such an event happening and now knew he would have to deal with the aftermath by very clever backpedalling. Or crafty ignorance. Or a little bit of both.
"Even speaking the spell backwards?" Dagna asked. "Like before?"
"Caw!" the griffon explained.
Alyce tapped her chin again. "That might be a spell."
"Caw caw!" the griffon shook its head.
"Alright," Alyce threw up her hands. "I guess not."
"Caw," the griffon said meaningfully.
"I'm not looking forward to telling the children," Alistair sighed for real this time.
"Caw?"
"You know Brogan has a dread fear of large flying things," Alistair reminded the griffon.
"…caw…" the griffon hung its head sadly.
"Is hoping that I'm dreaming all of this going to be any good?" Diana clasped one elbow in the palm of her hand. "Because nothing I've seen so far is even close to being believable."
Alyce snickered, giving the green-eyed mage a look.
"Fine, fine, I'm a bloody mage yes I've seen it all and shouldn't be surprised, what's next?" She threw her hands into the air. "What's next? Eh? The Fade ripping wide open and a horde of demons tearing through into the mort…al…world…" Her voice petered out. Dagna had been pointing. This time at the horizon. Far above the tree line, the sky zigzagged with writhing scars of purple and blood red, broken by flashes of angry black. "I just had to say it out loud, didn't I? Andraste's flaming-"
"Ahem."
"Arse!" Diana spat, with a sour look at her choking Templar spouse.
"Is that…?"
"No, no not this again," Diana warned, advancing on the dwarf.
"It is you know," Alyce said, almost gleefully.
"Caw!"
"I hate you all," Diana growled. "Officially."
"Not as much as you're going to hate those demons pouring through that great big rent in the Fade above that corpse of trees over there," Alyce said slightly more soothingly.
"Copse, Alyce," Dagna corrected. "I think you mean 'copse'."
"Nope," Alyce pursed her lips. "Gonna be corpses pretty much. 'Specially when a demon that size whizzes demonic piss all over you like that – pardon my Orlesian."
"Looks like it might be fairly close to the Tower of Magi," Alistair entered the conversation, in the hopes it might still be salvageable. "Do you think the Circle might have anything to do with it?"
"I hope not," Knight Commander Cullen frowned. "The last time the Ferelden Circle dabbled in demonic devilry-"
"Ooh, nice alliteration!"
"-the rest of Ferelden paid for it. Dearly."
"Disappointingly."
"Dreadfully.
"Will you lot shut up?"
Silence fell upon the group, the quiet punctuated by a soft sucking noise coming from the direction of the griffon, who seemed to be attempting to dislodge a bit of wedged dragon scale from between its/her talons.
"So…" Alistair covered over the noise in a breezy, cheerful voice. "We're all going to go there, aren't we? Please tell me we're not going to go there. Demon ichor is so difficult to get out of chain mail and the smell never goes away we're totally going to go there now aren't we?"
Alyce Amell turned to the Grey Warden, ramming her fists on her hips and glaring at him. "You've faced an Archdemon and hordes of darkspawn," she scowled. "And you're afraid of a few demons?"
"Give me a horde any time," Alistair grinned. "Shrieks. Love Shrieks. Ogres? Adorable. Demons? Not so much."
"Bah!"
Silence.
More silence.
"And we're leaving when…?"
"Now."
"Sure," Alistair sighed. "Just…give me a moment to find a collar and leash for my griffon will you?"
"You're a sick individual, Warden Commander."
"But practical," Alistair struck the air with his finger. Moving to the side of the griffon, he began tugging gently at its feathers, nudging it/her towards the mountain path. With a huff of exasperation, Alyce Amell followed him, Dagna trotting along after the trio. In their wake, Diana Amell cast a long look towards her Templar husband.
"Can we trust them, do you think?" she asked, frowning at her question as if the words weren't really hers at all.
Knight Commander Cullen shrugged. "What choice do we have? Death…or trusting an Amell?"
"Shut up, Templar."
"Yes, Senior Enchanter."