2. Ahhhh! Abomination!
Nobody quite knew how it happened, though there were certainly plenty of rumours. Though they varied wildly in the details, all the gossips were in agreement on the central point - that a mage in the Summoning Sciences chambers had either accidentally, or perhaps purposely, summoned a demon from the Fade which promptly proceeded to possess the mage, turning him into a horrendous abomination.
It was every sane mage's worst nightmare come to life - made into a meat-suit in which a demon could rampage around in. At least until the Templars fell upon it with righteous fury and hacked it into small bloody pieces. The Templars always seemed to be at great pains to describe, in gory detail, exactly how they had killed an abomination.
The implication was very clear to every mage in the Tower - allow yourself to become possessed by a demon and you too will be hung, drawn and quartered before being flung from the highest window of the Tower to land on the shores of Lake Calenhad where other Templars would then set what remained of you on fire.
Talitha and William, however, had no need of rumours to tell them what had happened. For they had witnessed at least part of it.
---
The day began like any other: Awake at the crack of dawn, breakfast watched over by Templars, half a day of various studies, midday meal watched over by the Templars, another half-day of studies, evening repast watched over by the Templars, prayers in the Tower's Chapel...watched over by the Templars and, finally, bed. Talitha did not know for certain whether or not the Templars watched her and the rest of the apprentices as they slept but it was probably a safe bet.
Indeed, had Talitha possessed more than a few coppers, she would have bet on it and quite likely make a huge profit. On this particular day, Talitha awoke with the memory of a dream at the forefront of her mind.
"I had a really strange dream last night," she said to William at breakfast. As usual, the older apprentice had managed to seat himself at Talitha's table, though he more properly belonged with the other apprentices soon to undergo the Harrowing.
"Really?" William asked, loading the question with all manner of innuendo. Just in case she hadn't caught the tone of his inquiry, William waggled his eyebrows at her.
"Not that kind of dream, you sick degenerate!" Talitha hissed. William looked hurt.
"What'd I say?" he protested.
"It wasn't what you said, it was how you said it!" Talitha snapped, drawing looks from the surrounding mages-in-training.
William raised his hands in surrender, "Alright, I'm sorry! What kind of dream was it?"
"I dreamed I was being chased by giant spiders," Talitha said, pulling apart a piece of bread.
"That's it?" William asked, disappointed.
"What do you mean, that's it?" Talitha frowned, "Giant. Spiders. Spiders, William. Huge, hairy, eight-legged..." she trailed off with a shudder.
William smirked at her from across the table, "I ever tell you about that dream I had where I was visited by a desire demon and she-" he halted abruptly as the girl glared at him.
"Too much information, William," Talitha flatly stated.
"Correct as always, dear lady," the senior apprentice said, nodding gravely. Talitha eyed him levelly for several moments before returning to her meal.
"What's your first lesson for the day?" William asked, partly because he was honestly curious but mostly because Talitha had a nice voice and he liked to listen to it.
"Potion Making for Fun and Profit," Talitha answered, spreading honey imported from Antiva on her bread. Antivan bees, she decided, knew how to produce nice honey. Antivan bees could probably give Ferelden bees lessons in how to produce nice honey.
"They teaching you how to brew anything interesting?" William asked, casting glances around to make sure the other students weren't taking an undue amount of interest in them.
"Interesting how?" Talitha replied and bit into the bread. "Ohhh this honey..." she sighed contentedly. Then, upon seeing the expression on William's face, "What?"
William covered a laugh with one hand, "The look on your face just now was priceless. Ohhh this honey!" he said in a falsetto.
Talitha merely smiled sweetly and replied, "If you want to wear it, keep that up."
William smirked at the girl, "Are you offering to smear honey all over me, Talitha?"
Wordlessly, the younger apprentice picked up the glazed earthenware bowl containing the honey and dumped the contents on William's head. Talitha swept from the Tower's common area amid a chorus of cheers and applause.
---
"I do hope you have some explanation for your conduct at breakfast this morning?" Wynne asked of Talitha in her grandmotherly way."I understand that young William has a knack for getting under a person's skin at times but I would not like to see a promising young apprentice such as yourself ruin her studies in the Circle by upending the contents of a bowl of Antivan honey on his head."
After the festivities at breakfast that morning, Talitha had reported straight to disciplinary action, fully expecting a tongue-lashing most harsh. She would have ended up there sooner or later, so why delay the inevitable? Instead she found herself having a comparatively pleasant conversation with the elder mage, Wynne. Even so, Talitha shuffled her feet in embarrassment and felt her cheeks burn at Wynne's mild rebuke.
"I apologise, Senior Enchanter," she replied, "But William," she paused, knowing how petty she must sound to the older woman, "implied that I wanted to smear honey all over him." Talitha's face burned even hotter at the thought.
The grey-haired elder mage merely raised an eyebrow. "Did he, now?" Poor dear, she looks absolutely mortified, thought an amused Wynne.
"Not that I ever would!" Talitha hastened to add, shaking her head to underscore her denial, truncated locks of chestnut hair flying about.
Wynne was satisfied that the girl had intended no malice and noted that while Talitha could have set William aflame she hadn't, demonstrating great self-control and restraint for an adolescent. The elder mage saw by the still-embarrassed expression on the apprentice's face that she would not soon forget that even the smallest of actions bore consequences and that one should consider their actions carefully.
"Very well, Talitha. Let us speak no more of this," Wynne spoke gently. Wynne smiled at the relieved expression on the girl's face, "Now run along or you'll be late for your lessons."
"Thank you, Senior Enchanter!" Talitha all but gushed and half-ran out the door towards the dormitory where she collected her spell book and potion making apparatus.
Back in the hallway outside the dormitory, Talitha was almost knocked over by a group of mages, both human and elven, wearing what appeared to be identical expressions of utter horror on their faces.
Talitha stumbled back against the hard stone wall, barely holding onto her spell tome and potion bottle. "What is happening?" she called after the fleeing mages. An elven mage cast a terrified look back at her and shouted, "Abomination! In the summoning room!" The elf tucked his head between his hunched shoulders and ran for all he was worth, leaving behind a stunned Talitha.
Abomination? In the Tower? Oh but that wasn't right. That wasn't right at all. The spell book and glassware dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers, thudding heavily to the floor and smashing into fragments respectively. A single thought burst into the centre of Talitha's consciousness, burning like fire crystals: Today was the day the older apprentices attended lessons in the summoning rooms. "William!" Talitha's voice came out in a kind of strangled wheeze as she sprinted down the hall, hem of her robes fluttering around her ankles.
William was, at times, supremely talented at getting under her skin, as Wynne had noted and he had definitely crossed a line with the honey comment but he was still her friend and she had too few of them as it was to risk losing him.
Without her being consciously aware of it, Talitha's feet carried her to the corridor that led to the summoning chambers. Rounding a corner, Talitha ran headlong into somebody coming from the other direction and recoiled with a gasp.
"Talitha?" William asked, that perpetually amused smirk on his stubble-flecked face, "Where's the fire?" and chuckled at his own wit. For her part, Talitha couldn't decide whether she should throw her arms around William and praise the Maker that he was safe or smack him for frightening her. So she did both.
"Talitha? What's gotten into you-ow!" William winced as the extremely agitated young woman first hugged him with surprising strength before smacking him in the chest with a dainty fist.
"Maker be praised!" Talitha blurted and, on the heels of that, "Don't ever scare me like that!"
William rubbed a confused hand along the stubble that just couldn't find the will to become anything more than the promise of a beard. "Talitha," he began, choosing his words carefully, "While I do enjoy the sensation of your arms around me, I take exception to you constantly smacking me. Is there something wrong?"
Talitha bent over herself, clutching her knees as she attempted to pull more air into her lungs. She straightened up, the look of outright fear on her face replaced with one of incredulity. "You have absolutely no idea about what's transpiring here, do you?" she breathed, "Why does that not surprise me?"
"I heard some sort of commotion but I was assisting one of the Tranquil in the storeroom down the hall," William cocked his head back the way he had come.
"So you weren't in the summoning chamber?" Talitha asked. Her knees went weak, such was the depth of her relief. The young woman stumbled forward and William steadied her, placing a hand on each shoulder.
"Talitha, be a dear and tell me what's going on," William asked calmly and patiently.
"I was on my way to my first lesson and a group of mages ran past me shouting about an abomination loose in the the summoning chamber!" Talitha spoke rapidly, words tumbling from her mouth as she endeavoured to impart the situation with the proper gravitas. Her efforts did not seem to pay off, however
William's blue eyes seemed to light up at the word abomination. "An abomination? Here, in the Tower?" he asked, voice betraying his excitement. This he had to see!
"Yes! An abomination here in the Tower!" Talitha grabbed her friend's hand and tugged at his arm, hoping to get him to follow her. William had other ideas, however and gently prised her hand from his.
"Don't you want to see it?" he asked excitedly. "I mean, a real abomination! Maybe we can even be the ones to kill it!" William's imagination was alive with the possibilities - the two of them slaying a powerful abomination and showing up the vaunted Templars at the same time. The prestige such an act would grant them; the instructors would stop treating them like children for a change.
"William, come on!" Talitha begged, suddenly on the verge of tears. Why was he being so stupid about this? He's a man, a voice, surprisingly calm and mature spoke in her mind. The voice sounded as though it more properly belonged to a woman who had seen over thirty summers, not herself.
In the space of time between one heart beat and the next, several thoughts passed through Talitha's mind: If I let him go alone, he'll be killed for sure! If I go with him, we'll both be killed! We should wait for the Templars! Where ARE the Templars, enjoying high tea with the Grand Cleric?
In the end, she made what was perhaps the only decision she could have, given the circumstances. She took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the summoning chamber. Maybe she could save him from himself.
---
The two apprentices - one alive with excitement, the other trembling with fear arrived at the doorway to the summoning chamber and halted abruptly. A horrific wet ripping sound came from within accompanied by dull snapping sounds, undoubtedly the bones of whomever the abomination was currently tearing apart. The ripping and snapping sounds combined with an inhuman roar, creating an infernal cacophony of sound.
"That doesn't sound good," Talitha spoke in curiously calm tones, taking refuge in gallows humour.
William looked sidelong at her, eyebrows raised, "Your talent for understatement is exceeded only by your beauty, dear lady."
A shadow seemed to pass over the girl's face and she hissed angrily at William, for now unmindful of the current situation, "Let me make one thing very clear: You are not going to charm me into your bed with constant flattery. I like you as a friend though there are times such as right now when I could cheerfully strangle you!"
William's eyes went wide as something large and only vaguely human-shaped appeared in the summoning chamber's doorway, slicked with the blood of its victims. Tattered remains of a mage's robe clung to it in places, testament to the sheer unholy force that had possessed the mage, almost doubling it in size and shredding the clothing from within.
Talitha caught the look on William's face, "It's right behind me, isn't it?" she guessed, falling back on that black humour she hadn't even known she was capable of until now. William nodded mutely, face slack with shock.
The abomination tipped its head back and roared, arms spread so wide that its clawed fingers gouged stone from the the walls. The magelings backed away on trembling legs, all thoughts of slaying abominations and showing up the Templars banished from William's mind. The abomination cocked its mis-shapen head to one side at an unnatural angle and considered them as they backpedalled, as though trying to decide whether pursuing them would be worth the effort involved.
The creature's head straightened and it lumbered towards them, each footstep seeming to shake the very stone floors. Talitha and William continued to fall back until they came up against something hard and unyielding. Talitha whirled around, mouth open to scream and almost collapsed in relief - they had backed up most of the way they had originally come, right into a trio of Templars clad in plate-mail, faces concealed beneath helmets. Leading them was none other than First Enchanter Irving himself.
Never had an apprentice been so glad to see the Chantry's attack dogs as Talitha and William were at that moment. William even managed to dredge up some of his customary irreverent humour. "Out for a nice walk this fine morning, First Enchanter?" he asked though his normally confident demeanour was gone.
"Are either of you injured?" Irving asked and, though his grey-bearded face clearly showed his concern at the current situation, his manner remained calm and as reassuring as the circumstances allowed. Talitha shook her head, dark eyes wide in a face gone almost white with shock, "Th-there's an abomination, right behind us!"
Irving's face hardened and he quickly ushered the young ones behind himself and past the Chantry's warriors.
The abomination shambled around the curve of the wall and stopped upon seeing the Templars and First Enchanter.
Irving rapidly whirled his staff above his head before slamming the tip down into the floor between his feet. An intense burst of blue-white arcane energy erupted from the staff's point of impact, washing over the abomination and driving it back with a howl. Irving stood tall and bellowed, "You shall not pass!" Drawing from deep reserves of mana, the First Enchanter paralysed the abomination before it could recover enough to launch an attack of its own.
"By Andraste's Grace," the lead Templar shouted to his brother warriors, "Slay the foul being!" As one, the three holy warriors closed in around the abomination and commenced hacking it into small bloody pieces.
Talitha stood in the corridor, fingers jammed into her ears to block out the sounds, eyes squeezed shut, though what she had already seen and heard would stay with her for some time to come and, when William wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a comforting embrace, she didn't pull away.
Eyes still closed and fingers blocking her ears, Talitha told her friend, quietly yet firmly, "Don't even think of attempting to steal a kiss, William."
William smiled but said nothing.
A/N: Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings movies came to mind as I wrote this, hence the Irving dialogue. Thank you to the reviewers.