Chapter 18: Morrigan
Markham did not live up to its reputation as a bustling trade center, the heart of the great "breadbasket" of Thedas, when frozen in Guardian's icy grip. The second month of the year left mostly deserted streets; only a few hardy locals on silent errands noted their passage on the chill evening as wintry breeze sought purchase under cloak and hood. The gentle promise of spring was but weeks away, yet still too distant for shops and warehouses to be open into the twilight hours.
Aithne could sense a dichotomy of emotion in the Orlesian bard riding double behind her. Leliana brimmed with a suppressed excitement belied by the grim purpose in her eyes. The bard guided them through the twilight streets and into a neighborhood of neat two-story homes; solid construction and decorative touches displayed the moderate wealth of their owners. They halted their mounts at a well-kept livery stable, and tipped the stable boy to rub down their weary mounts and give them extra feed. Their destination was less than half a block away; a house was built of pale local brick, its front steps adorned with a sturdy iron railing.
"A summer home for one of our merchant contacts," Leliana explained as they followed the bard into the wood-paneled entry way. The small group shed muddy boots and heavy cloaks before continuing on to the beckoning warmth of the parlor.
Aithne froze in astonishment as she entered the candle-lit room, "Wynne!" She heard pleased laughter from Leliana as the now fragile mage enfolded her in an embrace.
"Aithne, truly the Maker is with us; you have finally come."
"It's good to see you too, Wynne." Aithne smiled as she hugged the circle mage. Wynne often came across as sanctimonious, but the woman had a kind heart. Something it had taken a suspicious Dalish hunter months to see.
Aithne released Wynne and glanced around the room as the mage slipped past her to greet Zevran and Anders. Morrigan was seated in a chair near the fire with a small child in her lap. The Witch of the Wilds huddled in her shawl, face pinched and pale in the flickering light as she stroked the blonde curls of the sleeping child.
Aithne exhaled the breath she had not realized she held and crossed the room to the apostate. The first, and perhaps only, human of her acquaintance to share her love and understanding of the savage beauty of the wild lands, to see the perfect symmetry in a place where hunter often becomes hunted and, in the end, always returns to the earth to nourish the next cycle. "Morrigan, my friend."
"At least that foolish king of yours had the wisdom to find you and give you my letter." The witch's acerbic words were softened by a genuine smile.
"This is the child?" Looking down, Aithne knew it could be no other. The slender bone structure was all Morrigan, but the sandy blonde hair with its tendency to curl bespoke Alistair.
"I call her Mei."
Morrigan's tender expression made Aithne ashamed for ever doubting her friend. "A beautiful name for a beautiful child."
"It does not greet me. I might as well have remained a statue."
Aithne turned to face a stout dwarf, unfamiliar, with her neat braid of silver-shot brown hair and mocking grey eyes. "Shayle?"
"Were you expecting the king of Orzammar?"
"Shayle! It worked then; the Tevinter mages were able to change you back." Aithne embraced the former golem, just because she could, and tried to reconcile her stony companion with this sturdy, middle-aged dwarf. It seemed outrageous, too much of a chance, for so many of her old companions to be present.
Zevran's comment echoed her thoughts. "Had I known we were going to a reunion I would have dressed for the occasion. All we lack is a campfire and a few darkspawn." His words held a slight edge, which he softened with a genuine smile for Shayle. "So, now you're a dwarf again, are you enjoying the joys of life as a flesh creature?"
"The painted elf is very funny." Shayle paused, glancing at Mei. "But, I think perhaps in some instances he may have been right."
Bewildered, Anders entered the conversation. "I've heard all the stories, and I'm sure Shayle was a golem."
"I was."
"This I have to hear."
"And hear you shall, if you can simply keep your mouth closed and your ears open." Morrigan stopped as the child stirred in her lap, blinking to awareness.
Alistair's eyes. Aithne was catapulted back to her dream vision, a golden dragon with Alistair's eyes. The child who squirmed on her mother's lap bore no resemblance to the dragon of her vision. But the eyes were not those of a child; they were deeper, older, brimming with the promise of yet unrealized power.
"Kitty!" Mei squealed with delight, noticing Pounce, who had gracefully seated herself in front of the fire. Then, "Doggy," when Sky stalked into the room, refusing to be left out. Mei slipped off her mother's lap, oblivious to the strangers in the room, and scooped the cat up in her arms. Pounce suffered the awkward embrace as Mei tried to figure out how to pet Sky with an armful of cat.
"Mei, we have visitors." Morrigan's voice was soft, reminding the child of courtesies that she – former witch of the wilds- barely regarded.
Mei looked up as she struggled to hold a tolerant Pounce, and gave a shy, "Hi."
It was Zevran who crouched down next to the child, engaging her with his smile. "Do you have your own cat?"
"No, mommy said they just die."
"Well, let me introduce you to Pounce," Zevran motioned toward the cat, "And Sky," he gave the Mabari's ears an affectionate scratch. "I am Zevran, and the lovely elf lady is Aithne. We are old friends of your mother's. And Pounce belongs to Anders, over there."
"Pounce. Sky." The child fixed the important names in her mind, and then turned to the mage. "Can I play with your kitty?"
"Certainly, young lady. Perhaps you would like to sit down with her, though." Pounce was still dangling from Mei's arms, the child's small hands around her chest, the cat's back legs swinging.
Aithne glanced about the room as Zevran helped the child situate Pounce in her lap. It was apparent that Mei's sheer presence had captured the attention of every adult in the room. Definitely more than an ordinary child. She knelt next to Morrigan's chair, and murmured, "You once told me some things are worth saving; was it worth it?"
Morrigan followed Aithne's gaze to the blackened patch of tainted skin now visible on her wasted arm. "Yes, I think so. You know, I had intended to take her body, as Flemeth meant to take mine. It seemed a sure way to protect myself from my mother's return, binding myself to the soul of an Old God."
"And now?"
"No, she is more important to me than my own survival. 'Tis something I think you taught me." Her mouth curved in a bitter smile. "It seems now that I will pay with my life. The archdemon's taint had to go somewhere, something I'm sure Flemeth withheld on purpose."
"It's been years; how have you withstood the taint this long?" Sorrow for her friend battled with Aithne's knowledge as a Grey Warden.
"In part, my own power, thus my condition." Morrigan swept her hand down her emaciated frame. "Mei also has power of her own; she's just too young to guide it. If I could hold on until she was older I might have years, but 'tis a waste to wish for things that cannot be."
"Is that why you sent the letter?"
"In part. I think the whole story can wait until Mei is in bed; she is a bit distracting…." Morrigan's eyes followed Anders, who was showing Mei how to tease Pounce with a bit of string. "Also, there are things I would not have her know yet."
"Not to interrupt, but I set water to heat for bathing before I went to meet you at the inn. If we are to wait for the storytelling, this might be a good time to get cleaned up." Leliana set a mug of steaming herb tea next to Morrigan with a compassionate smile.
Aithne nodded her thanks and left the men to play with Mei, her thoughts churning as she followed Leliana to the kitchen, where a metal tub sat, filled with blessedly clean, hot water.
Later that evening, washed and dressed in clean attire, the companions returned to the parlor for the storytelling. Aithne sat on a slightly-worn divan, Zevran lounging at her side. "I'm not sure what I'd rather hear first, your story, Morrigan, or Shale's."
"I will start. 'Tis Mei that concerns us after all." Morrigan stared into the fire, eyes unfocused as she strove to find the words for her tale. "After the Archdemon was slain, I knew the ritual had worked. I could feel the power in the child, even so early after conception."
Aithne glanced in silent query toward Wynne, Shale and Leliana. Wynne's arched brow was answer enough; Morrigan had told them how the child came to be. She forced herself to remain still under the mage's disapproval, and returned her attention to Morrigan's words.
"I had planned to retreat to a southern highland of the Tirashan known as the Urthemial Plateau. It seemed remote enough and appropriate at the time. 'Twas my failing, that I misjudged the difficulty of starting in an unfamiliar place while pregnant, and later, with an infant. We left the Tirashan when Mei was nearly a year of age; she was walking and apt to wander off the moment my attention strayed – 'twas a most dangerous habit in the wild-lands. The remote areas of Orlais presented little challenge as we traveled, but when the land became more populous there were more Templars, and more arrogant Chevaliers." Morrigan frowned with remembered annoyance and continued. "For myself, there would have been little problem, but Mei… you have seen the child; magic radiated from her, even so young."
"We barely escaped from a group of Templars in Charmeaux. Containing the taint was taking increasing amounts of my power, leaving little to deal with the foolish mage hunters and their narrow-minded Chantry doctrine. I nearly retreated back to the wilds, but fear that the taint would overcome my abilities before Mei was grown turned us toward Tevinter. There I would not be pursued as an apostate; also, I hoped to find a way to slow the spreading corruption in my body. The great library at the University of Minrathous seemed the best option."
"You have been there, then? To the library?" Anders interrupted.
Morrigan gave him a quelling look. "'Tis what I was getting to before you unleashed your foolish tongue." She then turned back to the others, ignoring Anders entirely. "We spent over a year traveling, working our way north through Nevarra, then Tevinter. It would have been much faster to shift and travel as a wolf, but again, I had Mei to consider. Minrathous itself contained the most ill-advised collection of humanity I have ever witnessed, but the knowledge…." Her voice held blatant desire, a lust for information and the power it brought. "One could spend a dozen lifetimes and never read it all. I spent months simply trying to determine where, in all the books, the information I needed might be. 'Twas searching the library that led to my present difficulties, and also to the solution." She closed her eyes wearily and gestured at Wynne to continue.
"Morrigan is right about the library; it's simply amazing. Imagine a building, an entire city block, filled with nothing but books. Books in every language of Thedas, even those considered extinct." She turned toward the two elves. "Even a small section of texts in the rare stacks, protected by spells from decay, said to have been salvaged from Arlathan itself. Of course, no one can translate them fully now. Shale and I spent days randomly searching, trying to find anything involving golems or shape-shifting, before we attracted the attention of one of the scholars interested in transfiguration. Even with the knowledge of his entire department at the University it took several years before we amassed enough information to try to change Shayle back."
"That kind of help could not have been cheap." Zevran, street-wise and practical, broke the spell woven by the thought of such a search.
Shayle spoke. "No, it wasn't. Fortunately, the coin was something we could pay –information. They wished to know of my time as a golem, of Orzammar and of the blight. Every detail of those things copied by a scribe and bound in one of their books. What good it will do them I don't know, but it was their fee. The puny scholars seemed so excited by the challenge of changing me back that I think they might have done it for free, but someone higher up, I'm not sure who, wished payment."
"A high price indeed." Zevran's hooded gaze concealed his rapid calculations of what had been exchanged and the dangers that information might present to Aithne, the dwarves and the nation of Ferelden.
"You think so? You spoke to me once of the cost of immortality, of living in an invulnerable stone body. Your words showed me the things I was missing, that the vulnerabilities of a puny flesh creature were also its strengths. Do you take those words back now?" Shayle rounded on the assassin, the fire of new-forged convictions in her eyes.
"You may not be the only one to pay the price. Yet the deed is done, and I hold to my words; life in all its frailties is meant to be experienced. What sense in living if you don't feel; how sad to never hold the fire of a lover, the rush of standing on the knife edge of death, the joy of children, the warmth of your heart's desire, to grow up and grow old. That is life."
"Fine words, elf, but where is your true love; where are your children? You speak of things you know nothing of. I became a golem to escape those things; I buried a husband and all of my children. I think I know a bit about what things cost." Shayle's eyes bored into Zevran's, daring him to comment, as the rest of the group stared at her in shock.
"No comment. Good. We were discussing how we ran into Morrigan. Go on, Wynne." Shayle turned back to the mage, ignoring the effect her words created.
The circle mage stared at Zevran in unflattering appraisal for a moment before resuming her tale. "Those last months, before we made the final effort to restore Shayle, she and I occasionally saw a dark-haired woman with a child. She never was close enough to be sure, but we wondered if it was Morrigan. After Shayle was returned to her true form, it was several weeks before she was prepared to leave the apartment we shared. In that time, we talked, and occasionally our conversation included our suspicions about the dark-haired woman. We formed a plan to follow her; with Shayle a dwarf again, there was no chance of recognition."
"I followed her to the alienage, a rotting slum far worse than the one in Denerim. It's no wonder parents there sell their own children into slavery." Revulsion dripped from Shayle's words.
"'Twas the only place the mages would not follow me. They could sense Mei's potential, but they were unsure which of us harbored so much ability, thus we were left alone in public. It was when we left the library that we were followed; the Tevinter mages hoped to catch me unaware and discover our secret. Shayle returned with Wynne the very night she found me. They did not consider the alienage a suitable place for a child and wished to move us both."
"Morrigan had been right to hide. She and the child had only been in our apartment a few days before we were attacked by blood mages." Wynne spat the words with all the contempt a lifetime of Chantry teaching could muster.
"They spoke of a prophecy and tried to take Mei. I guess they had forgotten how poorly magic works on dwarves." Shayle gave a satisfied grin. "Blood mages die the same as any other on the blade of a sharp axe."
Wynne continued the tale. "We left Minrathous the next morning, sailing on the first vessel that would take us. In Avariel we ran into Isabela. We didn't sail with her, Seheron was her next port of call – not a pleasant place for a party of mages, but it gave us the opportunity to send the letter and give her verbal directions to have you meet us in the Free Marches at the port of Hercinia. Over the next months, we were occasionally pursued by blood mages and once by a group of Grey Wardens. When Leliana met us in Hercinia, she suggested we travel inland to Markham, as she had contacts here, and the approaching winter storms made sailing further south a risky venture."
"So the Grey Wardens I understand, they would wish to get rid of the child, but why the blood mages?" Anders queried.
"There is apparently an old Tevinter prophecy about the return of the Old Gods restoring the Imperium to its former glory. A group controlling an Old God would be in prime position to take over Tevinter if only politics is considered. If one throws religion in the mix, well, 'tis easy to see how fools are made." In perfect condescending form Morrigan replied.
"So what's our status now; have you been followed here?" Aithne calculated how quickly they could travel with a small child, a very ill Morrigan, and elderly Wynne given the imminent spring thaw. Ferelden seemed a very long way away.
Leliana spoke. "There was a man outside The Lady's Harp tonight that looked familiar. Not someone I've seen here in Markham before, either."
Aithne and Zevran exchanged glances; Leliana's memory for faces was flawless. If there was a familiar face outside the inn, chances were that Morrigan and the child had been found.
Zevran tipped his head and considered his lover's unspoken question. The howl of the wind outside rattled the windows as the storm that hovered on the horizon earlier in the evening finally arrived. "We can check things out tomorrow. Going out in a blizzard will only make us stand out more."
Aithne nodded her assent, secretly amused by Zevran's logic. In the quiet winter season two heavily armed elves going about asking questions would be noteworthy no matter when they did it. His inviting look made her reconsider his motives, and she drifted her hand across his thigh in answer.
"I see the painted elf does take his own advice," Shayle commented as she stood. "It appears the party's over. I'm off to bed."
Morrigan and Wynne followed the dwarf up the stairs, leaving Leliana, Anders and the two elves to make plans.
"Any idea who the man was, Leli?" Aithne asked.
"No, but it was a face I'm sure I saw in Hercinia. Black hair, close-cropped beard and mustache, medium height but solid. He was wearing chainmail and carried a rather nice silverite mace."
"Likely a Warden; we'll know if we get close," Anders said.
"And he'll know us if it's been any time since his joining at all." Damn it, why did Weisshaupt have to get involved in this? Aithne mulled and discarded half a dozen plans. "No help for it; we'll just have to confront him."
"In the morning, my Dalish lady." Zevran's hand kneaded the tight-strung muscles in her neck and shoulders.
Leliana grinned at her two friends. "I'm glad to see you two have worked things out. C'mon, Anders, I think they need some time alone."
"But what about you, Leli; surely you don't want to be lonely in a cold bed?" Anders pursued the bard up the stairs, pleading his case.
"He's not even in her league." Zevran chuckled as he laid out their bedrolls on the floor. With only three rooms upstairs, they had volunteered to sleep in the parlor. It also allowed them to guard the first floor entries in case someone did decide to brave the storm. Sky had been set to guard the sleeping Mei, so for the first time in nearly a month, they were truly alone.
"Anders can be persuasive when he wants to be, though. I doubt he'll end up sleeping on the floor."
"Perhaps not; Leliana has no doubt been short on company since she arrived. Speaking of company, my lovely Warden…."
"I've always heard Crows were persuasive…."
Later, relaxed in the afterglow, Zevran spoke. "You know Morrigan is dying."
"Yes, if the taint doesn't kill her, I'll have to. She's nearly a ghoul now."
Zevran held his Dalish lady to his chest as her silent tears fell.
Thanks to my betas for the excellent job they do in keeping my story coherent. *Hugs* to Erynnar and Brownc0at - I couldn't do it without you.
Also, thank you to everyone who has read this story and enjoyed it. Every time I get a story alert, favorite or review it makes my day.