Body and spirit I surrendered whole
To harsh instructors - and received a soul
If mortal man could change me through and through
From all I was - what may the God not do?
The Wonder, Epitaphs of the War, Rudyard Kipling
The Blightstorm had passed, leaving the sky a poisonous green bruise, charred with dull grey tendrils of smoke. Columns of men toiled in silence: burning the bodies of darkspawn dead and burying their own. Wounded were brought to the base of the hillside, to the long line of tattered grey tents that stretched to the edge of the Drakon River. Icy needles of rain made the cloth ripple and shiver like shroud sails. Chantry healers passed to and fro, carrying water. It had surprised them to be placed under command of a mage, but they made no complaint.
In total, the wounded numbered near five-hundred. Wynne and Rilian had moved among them, both able to tell very quickly whether someone had been infected. To Wynne, the slow, heavy sludge of disease showed as dark patches in the auras surrounding her patients: violently shifting grey-and-black bruises. It made her hands itch, seeking to pour out the power that welled inside her, as two levels of water must balance. But the darkness of rot resisted, rebuffed her. Rilian's Warden senses must feel different, she thought. She glanced over at the young woman, who bent to take the hand of a boy who could not be more than seventeen, pinched white face half-shadowed. Rilian had described the taint as a dark dirge that played at the edges of her mind, seeping into thought and music and dreams like dye in water. There was a drop of poison in every cup. The thought made Wynne glance towards the griffin tunic Rilian wore: criss-crossed with seams where the mage had mended it. She kept needle and thread in constant readiness within the pouch at her belt, where more sensible mages carried potions, and wished all damage were that simple to repair. She had also sewn the Warden's cheek, cut by the arrow that had killed the Hurlock General. The pattern of black stitches lay like a caterpillar across her left cheekbone. Rilian had refused healing for it. Foolish pride, Wynne had called it. She'd meant it then and she thought so now.
The triage saw the tainted separated from the rest of the wounded, while the knight Cauthrien and the men of Maric's Shield kept order. Riots ensued - wounded insisting they were not tainted; friends demanding to see them - and were swiftly put down. Volunteers - including Ser Otto, himself wounded, and Jowan - helped carry them to the moribund tent. Two Chantry women were washing knives and scissors in basins of heated water. The light was bad: the tent lit only by an oil lamp that cast a dirty yellow glow that melded with motes of dust to form a heavy, soup-like haze. It cast beds, basins and chairs as shadowy, abstract blocks of darkness. To Wynne's eyes, the amorphous shapes seemed to meld and shift, ambiguous and vaguely threatening. The floor of rushes was littered with bloody bandages, slimy with unspeakable detritus.
In an angle of the tent made by the large stove, a young Templar was crying. He looked about the Warden's age. The Chantry healers had stripped his amour: the skin around his naked thigh seemed to have been crushed, and everything was soaked with red. Newer, darker streams of blood formed an obscene spiderwork. Rather than being brighter, the newer rivulets already showed the oily glisten of taint. The patient was tossing his head from one side to the other, mumbling to himself. His face was completely drained of colour, and streaming with sweat.
"Rilian - go and fetch me some boiling water, and I want you to take the two knives: stick one in the fire for a minute or two - and the second one, leave it in the fire."
The Warden obeyed, and returned with a pot filled with boiling water and the dagger which was shimmering with heat.
"Hold his leg," Wynne said softly to the Warden. As Rilian moved to obey, the tent flap was opened and two soldiers came in. Wynne could smell the rain on them: she looked up to meet the dark eyes of Knight Commander Rylock and the steel-blue gaze of the Teyrn. Rylock's face was white – her skin almost translucent over the angled bones – and rather than its usual impassive mask her face held an odd frozen stillness. Wynne had seen the same look on the faces of mages after the horrors of Uldred's rebellion. Her eyes were luminous with exhaustion; the grey in her hacked-at hair seemed to have doubled since the morning. Under the Templar's skin, Wynne imagined a mechanism of overdriven steel and wire: no soft tissue, no fat. The thin, bloodless lips and gaunt, sharp-angled face had long resigned themselves to a life without care or glamour: her features did what she told them to do, and when they were told nothing, remained blank. The Teyrn's face was dark, but composed; his eyes quite steady. A series of craggy shadows, like those of a cliff-face; the dim light seemed to accentuate the jutting beak of a nose and broad, strong sweep of long cheekbones. His eyes were dead and fierce with hard-won, immutable conviction.
In silence, the two Commanders came to stand beside Wynne, supporting the young lad, holding him steady. Wynne reached for the leather case clipped to her belt and unrolled it, drawing out an empty cup, several needles which already had threads attached, tweezers and tiny brass clamps.
"Teyrn - Knight-Commander - help roll him onto his side and then hold him tight."
Rylock and Loghain followed her orders. Wynne carefully examined the wound, running her fingers over the back of the man's leg. She took the still-hot dagger, positioned it underneath the leg on the opposite side of the wound, drove the knife in half-way to the hilt and rotated the blade.
The young Templar cried out and began to struggle.
"It's alright...you'll be alright.." the Warden kept whispering – an odd counterpoint to the Chant the Knight-Commander intoned: the only words of comfort and reassurance the woman knew.
Wynne cut the exit wound wider and, using one of the brass clamps, pulled the wound apart. The cup caught the steady flow of tainted blood as the healer drew as much of the poison as she could from his body. Taking a pair of tweezers from her kit she reached into the wound, drawing the artery which was spurting blood.
"Not the main one, thank the Maker..."
"Damn it, mage, he's bleeding to death!" the Teyrn snapped.
"Just shut up and get the other knife from the fire!"
Loghain obeyed, holding the now-glowing dagger, the hilt wrapped with a piece of smouldering canvas. Wynne took the dagger, then deftly touched the blade against the artery. A steamy cloud of boiling blood hissed upward from the wound. The Templar jerked, trying to kick, but the three soldiers held him tight. The Warden had begun to cry.
Wynne repeated the process with the front of the wound, then cauterized that as well. Finally, she drew the boiled bandages, stuffed both wounds, then tightly wrapped a compress round the leg. At last she breathed a sigh of relief, laid the equipment down, and began the soft chant of magic, feeling the power course through body and mind, lighting her hands in a luminescent blue haze. The other three fell silent as Wynne slowly reached out, placed both hands upon the young man's leg, and closed her eyes.
She felt the healing power lift and gather her up an exhilaration like no other unless birds felt this way, swooping and gliding. In moments the torn flesh knitted and closed. She could only hope the bleeding and the flame had done enough - stopped the insidious darkspawn poison from eating into body and mind until it rode him to a screaming, gibbering death.
The three of them worked in silence, as the rain pattered hollowly upon the yellow hide of the tent, while Wynne repeated the process for all the wounded here. The heavy, crawling darkness of taint retreated slowly, grudgingly, from her power: she could feel, in her hands, the slow withdrawal of something dire. She could feel the sweat trickling down her face, her sight narrowed to a single core of light: the vision of power, which perceived each strand of disease or injury, which knew when the light had worn or driven it away - and when it had not. The taint wove dark, glistening strands - much like the Warden described the web that connected her with the darkspawn hive-mind: the Warden's power that was as much curse as gift. When she had done she was exhausted, barely able to stand: the Warden supported her as she always did. Those for whom the treatment had worked were carried to the main tent: leaving eighty-six Bannorn infantry, five Night Elves and twenty Templars for whom it had not. The Warden's face was pinched and white.
"Why?" she asked tightly, "Has no-one ever sought a cure for this disease? Duncan told me the Wardens have prepared for this battle for four-hundred years: that they alone knew the horde had not been defeated. Why spend that time recruiting men - and ignore completely the chance to end the sickness? Someone should know: even the Ash Warriors knew of a flower that could..."
"We tried the swamp flower at Ostagar," Wynne answered heavily, "It does not work on men - in any case, the season is wrong..."
The Warden's face flushed red with anger. "Someone should know better than that! The Circle Tower - the Wardens - no-one even talks to each other!" She stopped, drew in a sharp breath, struggling for control. She and Wynne moved away from the others and at last the Warden spoke the words Wynne had hoped never to hear:
"We must do for these men what we would wish for ourselves."
Wynne wondered if the Maker Himself were that certain; were all the Elven people like that - so sure of themselves, so all-of-apiece? The Warden had the rooted integrity of a young tree: poisoned, uprooted, branches of possibility lopped away, responsibilities grafted on like a wire mesh, forcing it to grow in stark, soldierly lines - but as long as she lived she would be the same tree, roots seeking life and head full of dreams, raised to the sky. Wynne had realised, knowing her, that those who had no intellectual grounding could nonetheless find another route to do right: knowing it intuitively, as a tree knows good soil, by how it flourishes.
She herself, her spirit of Faith flickering inside her, often felt as if they were made of shadows and light - like the play of moonlight on dark water - shapeless except in opposition to each other: a constant thrum of tension that was the source of the power that sprang up fountain-like within. This amorphous dance was contained and encircled by the ivory tower of her learning: all bloodless certainties and bookish wisdom. She knew the others thought of her as a dried-up old biddy, a busybody spouting moral doctrine without having lived in the real world. They could not know of the spirit nestled within as tenderly as the child she had carried for nine months - the little boy loved and lost. Raging emotions - dubious moral choices - dirty hands: were all poison to the life with whom she shared a bond that made the love of mother and child seem like casual affection; she could not indulge. She had shared her secret with only one person - the Warden - to whom she had also confided her personal moral credo: that the ends do not justify the means. The Warden had listened, learned and grown. Yet now it was the young woman who inspired her. Rilian's willingness to do violence to her own soul, if it would help others, made Wynne put aside the most sacred vow of any Circle Healer: First, do no harm... She only wished she had done as much for the wounded of Ostagar, all those months ago. Sometimes, hating the Teyrn - the man who had ordered the retreat - was the only thing that silenced the screams that still rang down the corridors of her mind.
In silence, Wynne and Rilian moved to the table and the Warden helped her carefully lay out the items from her pack: spider toxin, deathroot, and a concentrator agent. All needed to make the potion known as "Quiet Death".
She had barely finished the mixture when the first scream sounded. These screams were entirely involuntary: produced by the organs of the dying soldiers, writhing with taint. Wrists chafed raw with blood and skin already beginning to slough off were tied to the pallets. Some laughed as they howled; others prayed. The young faces were being eaten by the grey spiderwork of corruption; eyes were milky and dead-looking, as though gossamer-fine strands of web had been woven over them. They were dreaming in the heavy silence - fixing their fading vision on the dirty grey air of their demi-tomb. They were dreaming - staring from dark sockets with mad eyes - turning toward the possibility of an inner vision.
A harsh scraping sound brought Wynne's vision round to Ser Tavish - Rylock's second-in-command. He was hunched forward, ape-like, straining at his bonds. The madness was a fire in his eyes and his cheek twitched. Yellowish froth coated tombstone teeth and formed a thin line of scum along his lips. He strained at the rope with fingers clawed and a noise in his throat that was not human nor yet animal. From his torn wrists the blood trickled down and clung in the hair of his forearms with the stickiness of melted chocolate. His eyes flitted and wandered about the room with the irregularity of moths. With each jerk of his head the froth sprayed from his mouth and splattered his chest and arms.
Even as Wynne headed towards him the Knight Commander was there. Rylock approached steadily, unwavering, her Knife of the Divine glittering in her gauntleted right hand. Unlike the Warden and Teyrn, who had removed their armour before coming here, Rylock seemed to have taken special pains with hers. The glimmering silver shell encased her thin, hard-muscled body; the knife played with light as Wynne had once played with fire. Slow and inexorable as some cold and precise timepiece, Rylock approached the edge of the pallet and sat down. Then, before Wynne could stop her, the Templar ripped the purple sash from around her waist - wrapped it around the hilt to prevent the blood-spatter to her face - placed the tip of the knife with surgical precision between the fourth and fifth rib, over the heart...drove it downwards with all her weight behind it.
"Here lies the Abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew…come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies Eternity."
Rylock withdrew the knife, sliding it free of the agonized body now relaxed in death. She drew her iron-clad fingers across the staring eyes, closing them with the waxen peace of an effigy, and with quick, deft moves untied the arms and folded them across his chest.
Fury rose in Wynne. Rylock had no right to kill a man like this...not after Wynne's creation of the potion had cost every ounce of resolution she had! The callousness seemed all-of-apiece with the Templar mindset that would condemn a whole Circle to die because of the actions of a few...with the unthinking obedience that had seen a younger Rylock take Wynne's child to be raised by the Chantry and murder her runaway apprentice...
"Knight-Commander," she said, and her voice came out so calm, so cold that it astonished her, "I have prepared a potion to ease these poor men's passing. Is it really necessary to butcher them in their beds? Is that what the last sight of their fellows should be? Even Templars…" Wynne choked the last words off, suddenly appalled as she realised what she had meant by them. It was all too easy for mages to dehumanize Templars even as they accused the Templars of the same crime. Would there ever be an end to it? Only when we come to see each other as people first, mage and Templar second. Yes: when the Maker returns in a golden chariot and the Void freezes over...
Rylock's shoulderblades moved closer together and her chin came up slightly as she battled to control the sting. She pursed her lips until control returned, dark eyes flashing with an icy, bleak pride that would have shamed the Templar had she been aware of it. It was Wynne, not Rylock, who winced.
"Even Templars? My men will die by a sword of mercy as Andraste did; not by a mage's poison. They deserve nothing less." Rylock strode forward, forcing her to step aside, though she was careful to keep the blood-sodden sash away from Wynne's body. She did not take time to unwrap it - doubtless she knew she would need it again very soon.
Wynne had not noticed the grizzled, dark-shrouded form of the Teyrn until he spoke. He was sat by the bedside of one of his own soldiers. He was wearing only a sweat-stained gambeson over leather trousers and boots. Wynne wore gloves and had wrapped a protective cloth around her face - Loghain went bare-handed and bare-headed, as if he didn't fear infection. The ashen curve of his lips might have been irony or pain.
"So," he murmured sotto-voce to Rylock as the Templar passed him, "There is some fire in your veins that isn't lyrium." Wynne remembered the Teyrn's previous scathing appraisal of Rylock as a thin-lipped termagant, all spit-and-polish. Clearly, the battle and its aftermath had altered his perception. She did not expect Rylock to take kindly to the flippant reference to the Templar ritual of lyrium and prayers - and indeed she stiffened angrily, though too tired to object. Loghain had better be careful, Wynne thought: too much of his teasing would earn him a taste of the Knight Commander's dark, sharp wit which, however infrequently used, could be as murderous as her blade.
"Come now, Madam," Loghain said to Wynne with surprising gentleness - the gravelly shout reduced to a low rumble - "We can surely grant these men the dignity of dying after their own custom."
Resentment flared anew: red-raw, uncaring. Wynne could not forget Loghain's treachery at Ostagar - any more than she could forget his dealings with Uldred. He had sabotaged centuries of a delicate balancing act - had fed the ambitions of one petty tyrant over countless mages who held opposing views - all to make mages into his own personal weapons. Like so many others in power, he had tried to force his ideas of right - which may or may not have been right, but no man could know that - upon them. He thought he had the right - that was the root of all evil...and the children at the Tower - her children - had paid the price. Like Rylock, Loghain had no compunction about sacrificing the few for "the greater good".
"I should have expected such from you, Loghain Mac Tir! After the thousands who died at Ostagar, these poor souls must surely be a pittance."
There was a moment's stillness. Wynne confronted dry wide eyes, steel-blue irises stretched to a pale rim around the black; hard-shut white lips and dilated nostrils: a blazing rage, condensed by silence like the core of a furnace. For a moment, she had a sense of actual menace.
"Eight-six of my men are dying here - men I picked, trained, men I loved like family. Five Night Elves I have known for twenty years - men who fought for Ferelden while you were cloistered in your ivory tower. Don't ever tell me what my position means, do you hear me? Never. I won't warn you again."
Something warned Wynne to say absolutely nothing. She stood still, held and pinioned like a bird under the jewelled stare of a snake. Loghain turned on his heel, strode away.
He left a silence that ached like a wound.
In the far right corner of the tent, The Warden approached poor young Ser Perth with the vial. The knight of Redcliffe bore no visible wounds - but must have been in contact with tainted blood, for his chalk-white face bore the tell-tale spiderwork and his eyes were lurid with pain. He was mumbling to himself - Wynne strained to catch the words:
"And the Light shall lead you safely through the paths of this world…and you shall know no fear of death - for today is not your day to die: I will make sure of that..."
The Warden visibly blanched - shaking so hard that most of the Quiet Death splashed over her own tunic. She glanced upward - met the dark gaze of Rylock with tortured eyes. Wynne vaguely remembered an argument between the two over those very words:
"You have no right to make promises you can't keep, Warden. An honourable death in the Maker's service is all you can promise."
Rylock's sombre eyes were bright with shared pain and a look of tamped-down semi-crushed understanding. Wynne would not have thought her capable of such generosity - neither would she have thought Loghain capable of the gentleness he showed to his wounded men. He offered neither words of comfort nor words from the Chant – simply sat by the bedside of each of his soldiers, as he might have sat beside them off-duty in a tavern, and recalled the battle. He knew every man by name – seemed to have personally witnessed each act of heroism. As the soldier's deeds were recalled to him the young, ravaged face twisted in a pained smile; some life seemed to come back into the pale deathmask - he bragged a little, and essayed a joke. When the Teyrn offered the vial it was as casually as he would have offered a drink – the man took it, drank deeply, and settled back with a satisfied sigh. The Teyrn sat with him until the end, when he closed his eyes and breathed deeply like a man who has just completed the most exhausting race of his life.
Wynne never knew what made her approach him - she only knew it was better to swallow her pride than be so wrong. The Teyrn looked up warily. The words of apology stuck to her tongue as though they had claws but she forced them out:
"I...feel I should admit...I may have been wrong about you, Loghain Mac Tir," she admitted grudgingly. She was not looking at Rilian - but she could feel the Warden's approval like sunlight on her skin.
The Teyrn cut his eyes to Rylock in a moment of humour, soldier-to-soldier, at the mage who had to pick the absolute worst time to make an emotional admission. Maker - it was Greagoir all over again! That insufferable male arrogance that had alternately amused and exasperated her - and that she liked to puncture with well-placed barbs. She had one ready - opened her mouth...
"As it is a rather brave thing to admit a mistake, I will only say: thank you."
Nothing was going the way it was supposed to! He was infuriating.
"Yes, well," she snapped, thrown completely off her guard, "Enjoy it, for it won't happen often."
The faint trace of a smile warmed the steel-blue gaze.
Quietly, under the yellowish strands of thick candlelight, the four worked through the dust-choked air, the first gossamer strands of understanding woven between them, like the thread with which Wynne had stitched the Warden's wound, mending tears.
At long last, the only breaths came from the four of them, and the tent lay shrouded in a vast silence. Loghain beckoned to Rilian, Rylock and Wynne:
"This tent gets burned, and everything in it."
Leaving everything behind, the four stepped outside into the valley of death and the rain that turned the mud of the battlefield to stinking sludge. Though the Blightstorm had passed, the rain itself still carried an oily sheen, like the ballbearings Adaia had bought Rilian as a child, that seemed to carry an iridescent purple smear. A flicker of anxiety brushed her numbed brain, lightly as the wings of a moth, then was gone, swallowed by the morass of exhaustion. As a Warden, she was in no danger herself: surely the water was not so steeped in poison as to be a danger to the others? She tried to think back to the sketchy history Duncan had given her - but his tales had stopped at the battle of Ayesleigh and the victory of Garahel...Rilian had loved the story of the Alienage-born hero, and only now realised how lacking in real knowledge the legends were. She felt, once more, the dull flicker of anger. After four-hundred years we should know more than we do. Is wilful ignorance the same as choosing evil? Or does evil come with knowledge, as the Chantry teaches?
At the thought, she glanced towards the stark purity of Rylock's profile. The Templar gazed up bleakly at the lowering sky.
"Fire won't burn here. No fire at all."
Wynne met the eyes of the taller Templar with much the same strange, closed fierceness she had worn when facing Loghain.
"Magefire will."
Rylock was too self-controlled to flinch - but Rilian read the memories behind her hooded eyes as clearly as if she had been there herself. Time - always so tenuous when Rilian became exhausted - cartwheeled backwards...
A dockside evening, redolent with the smells of oil, the sea, fish-guts and refuse. Smoke rising and curling from chimneys...the yowl of cats prowling on their beams. Fifteen-year-old Rilian shuffled home, so exhausted she could barely think straight. Tiny puffs of wind danced with chill fingers upon her shaven scalp - she reached slender fingers up to touch it self-consciously. She had sworn to put away beauty and music forever...could never close her eyes without seeing the ruin the guards had made of her mother's: the map of scars where the right hand had been, her dying whisper: "I spent my beauty as a shem spends money." But still, Rilian's vanity endured, retaliated: she couldn't help but hope the haircut brought out her eyes...
On her way home, Rilian - greatly daring - stopped at the dockside market. It was mostly human vendors here - but none so high-and-mighty they'd turn their nose up at Elven coin. Rilian had never had money of her own to spend before - and to pick up a copper piece on her very first day! She paused a moment, admiring its rich sheen and the way it lay satisfyingly in her palm...Steeling herself - not quite convinced she'd ever see it's like again - she paid for a big bag of pork scratchings. On impulse, she decided to stop at a familiar human apartment before returning home. Shianni always frowned on sharing with anyone who wasn't Elven - but to Rilian a man who lived like an Elf and shared what he had freely counted as one of their own. Rilian gazed down at the delicious greasy bag and a faint frown of guilt creased her freckled nose as she remembered where the coin had come from. A backhander - for looking the other way as a crate of smuggled lyrium made its way to Redcliffe. A moment later the frown smoothed out, and Rilian straightened virtuously. It was not her fault that the Knight Commander at Redcliffe would rather indulge his habit than protect his people. All the same, it was best not to tell Ser Otto - she wouldn't want to spoil his pleasure in the gift. Humming to herself, Rilian reached the battered wooden door, knocked cheerfully, and when the serene voice answered, pushed it open.
Confused, she stopped. Ser Otto was not alone. A fully-armoured Templar was with him. Tall, thin, gleaming like a silver sun.
It was the first time Rilian had heard a Templar other than Ser Otto or the boy Alistair speak...and she found herself unsettled by the flat, emotionless monotone. There was something else strange about the voice too, though at first she couldn't think what. Maybe it was the accent? The Templar did have an accent - but there was something else...
"We only have four squires now: Alistair, Bonaduce, Richart, and Cullen. Fulcher was recently expelled for unmentionable conduct involving a - mage."
The Templar spat the last word out like a sour grape - it could have been replaced with "pile of dead maggots". Rilian blinked, nonplussed, feeling suddenly like an intruder - but in another moment Ser Otto was greeting her with his customary smile. Even with the new scars - still drawn in livid red across his blinded eyes - he had a smile like sun on flowers. Rilian could not keep from smiling back - and knew he heard the smile in her voice even though he couldn't see her.
"I brought you some pork scratchings - I thought we could have them for dinner."
"That would be wonderful. Knight-Commander Rylock, may I introduce my friend Rilian."
Rylock turned - and Rilian suddenly twigged what was strange about the Templar's voice: "he" was actually a woman!
"How do you do," she offered shyly, "I didn't know the Order recruited women."
The Templar remained as blank and stony-faced as a statue. Something about the pinched frown reminded Rilian of Aunt Elva.
What a beast! Be merciful unto me, oh Maker, for a dragon would swallow me whole!
Rilian tried again - surely even a shemlen female Templar was not immune to the sort of compliments shared among Elven women.
"Well - I can certainly see why they didn't need to alter the fit of the armour. You're as flat and straight as the Vhenadahl's trunk." That was about the finest compliment one could give a shem woman - slenderness being the Elven ideal of beauty. Most human women were thought of as grossly physical creatures - their bulging chests and fleshy curves more animal than attractive.
The compliment, however, seemed to be lost on the woman. The atmosphere dropped another few degrees.
Slender as a broomstick, more like, Rilian thought in exasperation, If I didn't know she was a Templar I'd suspect her of flying on one...
"Shall I," she asked, a little desperately, "Make some tea?"
"Oh, yes, please," answered Ser Otto - who seemed to be having difficulty keeping a straight face, "And do tell me," he continued gently, "How went your first day as a dockworker?"
Rilian felt her face crumpling - suddenly acutely aware of the jagged glass she carried hidden in her boot. It was a piece of glass from a guardhouse window, smashed during the summer riots - she had painted over one side to make a mirror. But now it was used not for vanity but protection. She turned, busied herself with making the tea, and tried to find words to explain to two humans what it was like. Shems, even nice ones, had certain limitations of experience.
"It was," she answered, trying to be as delicate as she could, "Something of a trial by fire."
As soon as the words were out, she wished she could sink through the floor. She turned - there was Ser Otto, sat by the table, the marks of hideous pain carved into his flesh. And Rylock - Rylock had removed her gauntlets, to better unfurl what looked like a list of supplies, and her arms looked like raw meat to the elbows. So this was the one, Rilian realised: the Templar who had pulled Ser Otto to safety after the mage's fireball had engulfed him. And - however much the woman seemed to disapprove of her - it suddenly dawned on Rilian that she was the only Templar who was actually visiting Ser Otto: going through the Order's business with him as though he were still a member.
She blushed, face as red as her hair - but neither Ser Otto nor Rylock seemed put out. Did the grey, milky eyes and the keen dark ones even hold - understanding? This surprised Rilian. They were both knights, after all - the proud and the powerful. But Rylock must have once been the only girl recruit among a cadre of frustrated men - and she had seen the way Arl Urien's guards laughed at Ser Otto.
"I would remind you of Transfigurations, verse 10," Rylock said crisply, "She should see fire and go towards Light."
"Yes!" Rilian blurted out, so delighted she felt a wide smile all but wrap itself round her face: "The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she shall know no fear of death - for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword." You know: that reminds me of something I thought, staring up at the night sky when I should have been concentrating on the crates - that the stars are like windows to the Golden City. That the locked gates may forever be beyond us - but they leave something in our hand we wouldn't have had if we hadn't reached for them. That we can travel forever towards Light becoming - what we can never be…"
Wynne was beginning to cast - small tongues of flame shooting upward from raised fingertips. The heat and scent of burning mingled with the heavy, damp loam of mud and decay. Rilian saw Rylock grit her teeth and start forward, standing beside the caster. Small beads of sweat stood out on her clenched jawline. Was it the desire that Wynne should not have everything her own way? Or the belief that only the Chant could transmute a thing of ugliness and pain and destruction to light and truth and beauty? Or simply the knowledge that her men deserved her prayers? Rilian wasn't sure. She felt her own throat closing up - remembered how it had been after her mother died: how the tears had balled into one huge fist that settled painfully at the back of her throat, allowing no food to pass, no words to pass. You must cry, the strangers - Aunt Elva, Cousin Iona, Dilwyn - had commanded. You must eat a little, talk, cry. But she had looked into their smug, complacent faces, their glittering avid eyes, their gossiping mouths, and the ball in her throat only thickened. Before the Templars took her away, Mother had looked like a waxen doll - a stranger with her beauty fixed on her face - eyes that would never see again - a smile that had never been hers.
"Do not remember her like this," Mother Boann had said.
She also told me that when I sing the Chant, I pray twice - but I can't lift up my voice or I'll choke on my own tears...what's that - a hand on my shoulder? Maker! Loghain's hand? Oh Maker - don't do that - you're only making it worse...and there they are. The tears... Lost in the blurred sight of the muddy ground and the rivulets of rain, Rilian sought to hide them.
Wynne had cast aside her protective cloak and hood - now soiled beyond repair. Her blue Enchanter's robe glimmered in the half-light. The power she called sucked the air towards her, as if she were the eye of a storm. Eyes as blue as her healing power crackled with anger. Her hair, loose from its bun, framed her taut face like white fire. Long elegant fingers jabbed like accusing points at the rain-washed, luminous sky, as though she blamed the Maker personally. A strange, fiercely-eager expression shone on pale, sweat-gleaming skin. She spoke, soft, well-modulated voice rising and falling in the strange, spidery language of magic. Beside her, Rylock stood, half-guarding, half-supporting the mage. She stood straight as the soldier she was: still in heavy armour, though Rilian knew the body beneath must feel like molten lead poured into an iron exoskeleton. She herself could barely keep upright, and she was wearing leggings and tunic. She was also half Rylock's age. Rylock was impassive, dark eyes bright with sombre conviction and bleak loss. When she gestured with one gauntleted fist to her chest - the standard way the Chantry began its prayers - it seemed to Rilian more as though she were trying to push her own feelings back inside. She did not sing - spoke the words as a soldier would: in low, precise tones, with clipped enunciation:
…The Light shall lead them safely
Through the paths of this world, and into the next.
For they who trust in the Maker, fire is their water.
As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,
They shall see fire and go towards Light…
The tent was illuminated by a nimbus of white light: tongues of flame that balled, billowed upward, shot towards the roiling sky. The shimmering curtain of rain glistened like seeds of light, scorched before they reached the earth. The death-shroud of sackcloth shrivelled like corpse-rags, leaving only the framework standing, like the bones of some giant creature. Then it, too, was consumed by the blaze, burning like a rage demon with misshapen fingers clawing the air. At last the entire structure collapsed inward, white-covered bodies ignited like stars. Through it all, Wynne seemed serene, at peace: her eyes reflected the flames like blue suns, her queenly profile glistened with sweat, her breaths came fast and shallow. And there was a look of ecstasy on her face; of exultation...
…The Veil holds no uncertainty for them,
And they shall know no fear of death, for the Maker
Shall be their beacon and their shield, their foundation and their sword…
Rylock finished her prayer, saluted the dead, then turned, in silence. Wynne closed her eyes. Life and strength seemed to drain from her like blood from a wound - and Rilian remembered Wynne's secret with a cold little chill of fear: how the strength of her Spirit of Faith was given for a time only - that Wynne's lifespan was running out like the sands of an hourglass. Maker, don't let it be now, please. I couldn't bear it... Wynne stared at them without recognition. In her eyes was a look of ancient sorrow: the sorrow of one who has been permitted to enter a realm of lambent, perilous beauty and who now finds herself, once more, cast down into the grey rainswept world.
Rylock supported her, one arm across Wynne's shoulders. Rilian felt the tears make dirty tracks across her face - but she was far past embarrassment.
"That was beautiful," she said softly, "Thank you. Both of you."
Rylock looked startled. "You would have done it better," she said gruffly. Rilian blinked - stared at her - and saw a wisp of childhood inadequacy: residual, utterly incongruous. Her mother's death and all that had followed had shown Rilian how unimportant were mere grace and golden voice - yet here was Rylock, who had pulled Ser Otto from the fire and saved Rilian from the Fade demon, sheepish because Rilian possessed a knack that she did not!
"These men were soldiers." Her voice broke a little - but when she continued it was quite steady. "It was better your way."
Rylock stared at her in a gratitude not quite aware of itself. Rilian smiled at her - at them all. "I think the four of us have earned a drink. I have some Ovaltine in my tent..."
Wynne raised her head from where she had been resting on Rylock's shoulder. Rilian saw with vast relief that some of her acerbic bite had come back. "Ovaltine? I want brandy, dammit!"
Rilian snorted - a sound half-way between a laugh and a sob. "Then you shall have brandy! Loghain, will you do the honours..."
"Certainly, Warden. I have a twenty-year-old Antivan in my tent..."
"Goodnight, Warden," Rylock said, very decidedly, "Mage - Teyrn. I shall see you in the morning." But Rilian thought she looked a little wistful.
She reached upward and squeezed Rylock's armoured shoulders in a barroom embrace. "Now, don't be foolish, Knight Commander. You know perfectly well that what you need is...to discuss tomorrow's strategy with the Teyrn. Isn't that right, Loghain?"
"Indeed," Loghain replied, catching on, "This battle was only the beginning. I wish to share with you my plan to trap the darkspawn between Ostagar and Redcliffe."
Rilian saw Rylock wavering...as if that were not enough, Wynne chose that moment to fix the Templar with a faintly challenging stare. "What's the matter, Ellen?" she asked - using the first name Rilian had never heard before, "Afraid you might enjoy it?"
Rylock frowned, needled. "Very well," she said curtly.
"Hah!" Rilian blurted out exultantly, patting Rylock on the back. "Brandy and company are much better for you than the rug and the drug."
Rilian blushed faintly. She recalled Ser Otto referring to the sacred ritual as "drinking the light-to-be" and had thought it a wonderful affirmation of faith. She felt guilty for making fun of such a private and precious thing - but in truth she just didn't feel comfortable saying anything serious. She was too pleased Rylock was coming - and too afraid that to show it would cause her to realise what she was doing and back off. As it was the Templar couldn't do that without appearing petulant.
Rylock took the flippant reference with admirable restraint, though unable to help an annoyed grimace and slight glance heavenward.
"Now, now, Warden," Loghain interjected mildly, "What happened to "polite"?"
"I think the darkspawn took my manners."
"Humph. There was nothing else worth taking." The low growl held the note of familiar banter, worn down to comfort. Rilian heard herself giggle. She didn't know where the sudden levity had come from, but she knew it hid something fearful. The four made their way southward, towards the main camp, encircled by the glimmering arc of the Drakon River. Droplets created a shimmer of varied blacknesses that opened like greedy little mouths, expanded, then collapsed to nothingness. The rain was a driving presence with them. It seemed to press on Rilian's brain, insisting on something: much like the Song was an insistent, constant murmur. No longer music but a state through which the world is filtered - because music stops...
The rain-washed night sky was a heavy, oppressive purple, like a mottled bruise. The array of tents formed a patchwork of squat, inky icebergs against the grey frozen-looking river. Rilian was so exhausted the landscape took on a dreamlike quality. Her thoughts seemed to emanate from her tenuous reflection floating like a ghost upon the water. She felt as though every bone in her body were an aching tooth. Her head was a drumbeat of pain; her eyes burned. Something dark suddenly winged close to her head. She looked around, and at the corners of her vision every time was movement she couldn't catch. The night was alive with the afterimages of battle, narrowing around her like the tightening of a noose. The residue of horror still crept upon her bones.
The main camp was a series of fires that shone like squat little glittering blisters: smouldering through the rain in sullen defiance. Gaggles of soldiers were huddled round each one: drinking, talking, laughing - hysterical with delight and relief that they were still alive, untainted, whole. Leliana's clear, pure grace notes soared toward the upper end of her range. Rilian seized on the beauty as the only thing that drove the Song from the edges of her mind. But the words themselves unsettled her. Leliana was singing about an Elven hero who had faced the Hurlock General toe-to-toe, with no mention of Loghain's strategies or Nathaniel's arrow. What bothered Rilian was that she liked it that way. She felt herself straighten. The cheers of the men were wine to her numbed soul - the rumble of voices, drunken laughter and yowl of fighting cats were the sounds of home.
Loghain's tent was a sturdy, squat square, made of thick yellow hide. He pushed the flap open, followed by Wynne. Rylock struggled with the straps of her soiled armour and Rilian stayed to help, her dextrous lute-playing fingers working at the straps of the Templar armour with the precision of familiarity. She could tell this surprised Rylock - as Elves were not permitted in the Chantry, where would she have learned? After she had met Ser Otto, she had day-dreamed about becoming a Templar - until Shianni had squashed the fantasy by snorting that if Rilian truly wanted to be a Chantry running-dog, she would happily marry Nelaros herself.
"I used to do this for Alistair," Rilian said wistfully. "It always lead to - something else..."
As if the words were a formula opening some sealed chamber in her brain, the dark grief and yearning opened like a chasm to swallow her whole. A flood of memories: Alistair's bright gaze and strong face sweet as birdsong - the sunlit humour of his golden eyes - the way all his feelings played about his skin like light on water. The warmth and strength of him - the clumsy exuberance that somehow translated to assurance when he fought beside her - or gentleness when he took her in his arms. His warmth and his breath; his smell of sage soap and leather and cheese...
Why did I say that? she wailed silently. Now she'll think Alistair broke his vows, when he never - we never...I wish we had. I wish I'd given him that - why did I act like we had all the time in the world? So worried about doing things rightly - about betraying Nelaros' memory - about what my folk would think of me. So worried he'd treat me like his father treated that poor servant - unless I made him marry me first. Did I, in my heart of hearts, need to test him?
Elven woman. Human man. Pounding in her head.
Suddenly, all her body's weeks without Alistair's touch expressed themselves like a chill all over the surface of her skin.
I should have given him that. Should have given everything. Only - if it hurts worse to lose a lover...
I had to side against him. Anora showed me that - showed me the necessity. But he will go into battle thinking I betrayed him. And he - the rumours - that night in camp. The story about him and Morrigan - that he betrayed me...
For one terrible moment, Rilian hated Anora and Morrigan as she had never hated any other women.
Rylock's thin mouth was pinched in disapproval: whether at the idea of Alistair breaking his vows or the attempt at girl-talk Rilian wasn't certain. Dark eyes impassive and tone leaden, she said dourly,
"It won't this time."
Rylock's words popped the membrane of grief and yearning. Rilian's dark, mournful mood vanished like a soap-bubble. She stared at the Templar in astonishment, mouth rounding to a perfect "o" and eyes wide. A startled giggle escaped her. "A joke? You - joking?"
"Certainly not."
"Hah! You can't fool me. Now I know there's someone hiding inside that statue: someone as sarcastic as Loghain..." Still chortling, Rilian removed pauldrons, vambraces, breastplate, the purple skirt that Alistair had claimed was to outdo the sartorial elegance of mages, hauberk and sabatons. Rylock's dark, plain tunic, trousers and boots were close-fitting about her thin, gracile form: all sharp angles and sinewy muscles - no curve, no grace, no yielding. Rilian pushed open the tent flap and the two headed inside towards the enshrouding warmth.
A faint tendril of firelight snaked in through the opened flap and limed Loghain's broad shoulders in a rust-coloured glow. Rilian could just make him out: moving through the thick darkness as precisely and unerringly as he had cleaved the chaos of battle. The gnarled hands were steady as though wielding a sword, or tracing maps, as he struck flint and tinder and lit the small brazier beside the shadowy bulk of his desk.
The light made a warm friendly glow like rich yellow honey. It blazed outward, reflecting off angles and smooth surfaces to form a glittering golden web of light. And everywhere it touched took on meaning for Rilian: decoded shapes leapt from homogenous darkness. A cabinet - writing table - bedroll - three chairs...
Along the far side was a wooden screen, showcasing a large collection of maps. Loghain lit another candle upon the desk - and the two sources of light rippled and collided like wave forms, creating an explosion of living light and shadow that played about the mellow parchment, waking dotted roads and trees and fortresses to life. Enchanted, Rilian stopped and stared - and recalled an old fancy of hers in which the "Botanist's Map Of Thedas" Ser Otto had given her was really a window to another world. She had felt as if she could step inside it and explore...
In a way, I did - but in my dream I always came home, and I know I'll never see home again. But it's as the Hahren always says - when we lose a family member to the Circle; when I gave myself up - some of us have to lose home so the rest may keep it...
Delighted, she saw that Loghain had put that very familiar map up, in pride of place - for a moment, she was transported home again: standing in front of it, dreaming, while the familiar smells of sewage and dead rat snaked through the warm richness of her father's baking.
"Oooh - you put up the map I gave you!" she exclaimed, "The copy I made of the Circle Tower's "Botanist's Map of Thedas". I still have the original - over my bed at home. Ser Otto bought it for me."
Behind her, Rylock sniffed - the sound so reminiscent of Shianni it completed the picture of home. "He would do better to buy you a copy of the Chant. Perhaps then you would stop misquoting the Canticles."
Rilian giggled. "Nah - I'm sure the Maker doesn't mind me adding my own touches. Otherwise he'd have made me a Chanter and not a storyteller. Besides, I already own the illustrated version. I'll lend it to you sometime..."
Loghain opened the mahogany cabinet to reveal a venerable-looking bottle of a familiar amber-coloured liquid. Rilian gazed at it in disfavour and wrinkled her nose. Memories of the Orlesian brandy kept in Arl Bryland's cellars and skimmed by Cyrion - who held the position of Head Chef - rose up. Her father and Garn Brosca - the Dwarven supervisor Rilian had nicknamed "The Dockfather"- had had a mutually beneficial arrangement, with Rilian perfectly-placed to act as go-between. It had seemed to the teenage Rilian an enormous injustice that her father wouldn't even let her taste the stuff. One night she and Soris had decided to rectify that. The morning after had cured her forever of the desire to sample brandy. She paled at the memory of lying in bed, unable to get up, while the world tilted and swayed on a silent demonic sea. Bad enough if she had spun sideways - but no, she had felt as though her head were sinking backwards, her legs up and over, as though she were strapped to the giant wheel in Punishment Square, playing what Arl Urien's guards termed "roulette with the Maker."
"I can't drink that," she blurted.
"Why not?" Loghain growled.
"My insides."
"I didn't know you were such a delicate flower, Warden," Loghain muttered, "One wonders how you survived the Joining."
Rilian scowled. Bad enough that Loghain had wrested most of the Wardens' secrets from Riordan - to have him cast it up at her added insult to injury. He met her glare with an infuriating smirk. With as much dignity as she could muster, she spun on her heel and raced outside:
"Back in a minute!"
Outside, the cold, water-loud night embraced her. The chilled, swirling rain was gilded with firelight and carried voices and laughter. The dark was alive, and so thick she felt she could wash her hands in it. She squinted into the rain-lashed distance, heading for the tent she shared with Shianni. Rilian didn't know how it was that Shianni, who was far less experienced a traveller than she, had got the knack of putting it up within a day, while she still struggled with the pegs.
Rilian and Shianni had moved up in the world: after the battle a group of her soldiers had presented her with the enormous tent, made of gold cloth and studded with ornamentation. It was Rilian's pride and joy: large enough for their two cots, several large chests, Arl Eamon's delicate Orlesian chair that she liked so much, a weapon rack and a wardrobe. Rilian knew Shianni was inside: the candles she had lit turned the gold cloth to a beacon of orange-yellow luminosity. Rilian pushed aside the cunningly-woven tent flap. She felt her face blossom into a wide, delighted smile - then all at once a chill like a bucket of ice swept her from head to foot. The smile warped to a rictus of horror and her voice emerged in a mouse-like squeak:
"I told you not to touch it!"
Shianni was washing the red armour Rilian had discarded - still stained with darkspawn blood.
"Oh, Rilian!" Shianni clucked, with the swift shake of her head that meant friendliness as well as exasperation, "Credit me with some sense." She raised her hands from the bucket - they were garbed in elbow-high protective gloves. Light as silk and tougher than bullhide, the Dalish leather was treated with the same waterproof wax as the aravel sails. Intricate enchantments also protected the wearer from fire and magic.
Rilian breathed out slowly, relief turning her body to a boneless sack of blood. "You still shouldn't have..."
"Don't be silly," Shianni said, amber eyes grave, "I know where you were tonight. I'm just thankful Keeper Marethari, Keeper Lanaya and Keeper Ilrae performed that duty, for us."
For us...Rilian thought, a tendril of wistful sadness snaking through exhaustion. She didn't know whether it was at the Dalish refusal to share hospital quarters with the rest of the army - or at Shianni's casual use of a word that excluded her. Shianni's weeks among the Dalish had changed her. Her face was leaner and harder than Rilian remembered. There was pride in her bearing - a tight muscular control of her body - she had grown into the supple leather armour. Her composite shortbow - made of horn, ironbark and sinew - lay like a gleaming arc upon the weapon rack. But Shianni's smile erased the months between them - brought Rilian back home:
"Besides, this stuff's no worse than what I used to have to bleach from shem underwear..."
Rilian giggled, then hunted through the enormous pile of her own mess: discarded clothes, maps, a hunk of cheese...a collection of impressionist paintings that scalded her throat with sudden tears, drew her blurred vision toward the sword that glittered beside Shianni's bow, sleek and iridescent.
I will bring you home, my friend...somehow. Time is running out for me - but Zevran told me he was my man, without reservation. And he and Isabella have a ship...
She swallowed determinedly, then found what she had been looking for: the big bottle of raspberry-flavoured cider she had been saving, and her lute. Shianni raised an eyebrow.
"You're going to share that with that shem bastard?"
"He was there," Rilian said simply, "In the tent. So were Wynne and Knight-Commander Rylock." And no-one can ever come as near to me, because they know the things I know...
Shianni cocked her head: questioning, seeking, not quite understanding. At last, hesitantly, she said:
"I will be gone the next few hours. The Dalish are holding a...ceremony...for those of us who became adults today. I...I thought Vaughan had stolen that from me - but the Dalish judge adulthood by a hunter's first kill, not by marriage and children. And Cale does not think me ruined. But - I don't forget the values we grew up with. I intend to be back in our tent by midnight. I expect the same of you."
Gently, Rilian reached out, took her cousin's shoulders. She rested her forehead against Shianni's, leaning into the support of her: the unyielding rock of her childhood.
"I will be back by midnight," she promised softly, "I'll not forget my honour, or where I come from. I need you for that. You hold me in place."
Rilian whirled, spun away into the night, bottle and lute in hand and tent-flap billowing behind her. She felt oddly weightless - a ship cast off from moorings, heading from one port to another. Back in Loghain's tent, Rilian was not surprised to see the three middle-aged folk had appropriated the chairs - she sank down, cross-legged, onto the floor. Wynne laid a gentle hand across her shoulders.
Rilian poured the sparkling pink liquid into her glass and offered it to the others. Everyone shook their heads. They seemed to be carefully not looking at each other - but Rylock faced her directly, and said, with an odd hesitancy: "Warden - that is not champagne. It's cider - flavoured with sugar and berries. If some unscrupulous Denerim merchant has lied to you, you should report him."
Rilian shook her head. "I know what it is," she said proudly, "My friend Alarith makes it back home. It's a far cry from the cider we used to drink at the docks. That stuff could strip paint. My tastes have matured since then." To prove the point, she took a delicate sip, little finger cocked.
Rylock only nodded: face so devoid of expression Rilian could have sworn she were one of Caridin's golems. The knight refused to look at either Loghain or Wynne. Loghain and Wynne were glancing at each other, smiling... Rilian shrugged and grinned, not worried. If shems had no taste for the finer things in life, that was their loss.
"It's certainly better than that stuff," she added, pointing an accusing finger at the brandy bottle as though it had personally offended her. "That brandy makes me sad."
"Sad? How so?" Loghain challenged.
"How long as it taken to reach its present state?"
"Twenty years."
Rilian nodded heavily. "Twenty years of care, of nurturing, of growth - gone in a few moments. Don't you think that is sad?" For within the week, either Alistair or I will be gone...
No! Within the week, Alistair will be Warden-Commander. Riordan will cross the border and convince Guillaume Caron to rally his men. I will die - and, oh Maker, it is so hard to die! Of all the things we must endure, this must surely be the hardest...
I see Mother: stump like a piece of meat held up to the light. Her face is flushed with anger and fever; her eyes are glittering febrile blisters. "Listen to them, Cyrion. Look at them flowering out into the world! Beauties, both. For what? So life can unravel them to suit its purpose. Girls, take your lesson from me. This lesson: of how life twists us so we put value into worthless things. Puts beauty before us to blind us to what beauty really is. I spent my beauty as a shem spends money. Learn my lesson - or by the time you learn that beauty is just a shell to hide behind, life destroys even that shell leaving you with nothing. Do you hear? Do you see? Nothing!"
Loghain looked suddenly old and tired. But he only snorted and said: "Nonsense. You're not fit to drink yet."
At once, the dark nest of memories vanished in a fit of feminine pique. Loghain was about as far from her ideal of attractiveness as it was possible to be: a scarred hulk of muscle and sinew old enough to be her father. But her pride was stung by the idea that the disinterest was entirely mutual.
"You're just too old to appreciate me!" she shot back.
Loghain grunted in amusement and poured himself another glass. When he moved to refill Rylock's the Templar managed only a half-heated protest, which he ignored. He poured Wynne another tumbler-full and Wynne knocked it back with practiced ease. The candlelight played about the glasses, turning them to darkly-sparkling golden jewels. It was like shining oil on Loghain's cheekbones. There was a small scar across the right. The smoother skin there caught the light better, glittered jewel-like. Rylock's lanky form still struggled to maintain the Templar posture: jutting shoulderblades, spine like dragonbone, straight knees. Her thin, hard-muscled forearms were no longer red, like meat, but the skin looked strange: a mass of silvery striations, in places puckered, in places satin. Dirty leather bindings around the palms that would no longer callus. Raw patches showed where skin had rubbed against gauntlets - a sudden inspiration shook her. I'll make off with one of her gauntlets when she's not looking and ask Master Varathorn to make gloves to fit... Delighted, Rilian nearly clapped her hands. Loghain had the map to remember her by - and she was just waiting for the right time to present Wynne with the book hidden in her pack: "Potions, Tinctures and Spicy Sauces". Wynne was sitting with her usual elegance. Her hair, loose from its bun, was pale and fine as an angel's. Hair like light - eyes deep as an ocean.
Loghain spread the map across the desk and began to talk them through the next stage of the campaign. The callused, slightly curved fingers of his right hand moved over outlined ridges, woods and valleys. The palm of his left, dry and hard as old tree bark, rested on the edge of the parchment. Rilian squinted, trying to focus through blurred eyes upon the green of hills and valleys, purple mountains, grey trade routes and cities...upon the dark mass that blotched the beauty like ink. Now that they had defeated one mass of darkspawn, Loghain intended the army to go to ground at Ostagar. They would reach the fortress in under a week.
"Our intelligence reports a second, larger mass of darkspawn directly south of Lake Calenhad. Our present forces are too depleted to engage them in the open. But if the forces of the Bastard Prince at Redcliffe can drive them toward us, we can break them upon the rock of Ostagar." A flicker of pain crossed the hawk features, banished in an instant.
"As should have been done before," Wynne stated.
He has enough to bear - don't add to it. I'll never forget the moment before the charge, wondering if Loghain's signal would come too late... All we should do is thank the Maker we weren't in his shoes. But then: none of us were in yours. I was rescued like a storybook hero - Loghain quit the field. We never had to see the charnel-pit, or soothe those dying screams...
Rilian glanced at Rylock's quiet face, carefully blank, and read the shame behind the inward-looking dark eyes: I cannot judge - I did not even retreat.
We'll never know why the King wanted the Templars to remain in Denerim - if there are answers, they can only be with his correspondence - but I know Rylock regrets it to this day. Her childhood friend, my mentor, dead at Ostagar; Ser Bryant dead at Lothering. In the Circle Tower, when Greagoir and Irving were arguing like old men at a beer-drink, I used that to gain her service.
Rilian remembered Rylock's vow: "When you have mustered your armies, send word to Denerim; I will be there." And she remembered the day she kept it: the day after Anora had routed Arl Eamon, when the Amaranthine forces and Revered Mother Leanna came to Denerim for the Queen's final War Council. The Revered Mother - who, Anora had told her, would likely be named Grand Cleric by the Divine after the deaths of Grand Cleric Odila and Mother Boann at Ostagar - had a face rich and full as Amaranthine Chantry. Smooth as cream and tougher than bullhide. She had looked at Rylock in silent, dire challenge, and the message in the stone-grey, merciless eyes had demanded submission: one will to another. This was irreversible confrontation, beyond theology. Rilian had looked on in fascinated horror at the quiet dynamics of it…
…"Our aid to Ferelden has not been sanctioned by the Divine. I cannot give my blessing."
Rylock's plain gawky face was pale and pinched in the mute non-defiance Rilian had only ever seen in Elven servants; dark eyes that did not expect mercy, bright with sombre conviction and bleak pride. The eyes that would not recant.
"Your Reverence: Darkspawn are creatures spawned from the Black City, created by the foulest of Blood Magic. Surely to do nothing would be as great a sin as to spare apostates and maleficarum."
"The Chantry determines what's sin and what isn't. When I'm Grand Cleric, I'll absolve you."
Rylock's jaw jutted. Behind her taut face and tough keen eyes, the lamp of faith flared high; one saw the light as a dazzling glint through a chink. "The Maker determines."
The Revered Mother spared her one glance of knifing enmity. Quietly composed, Rylock bowed and left the chamber. Her eyes were stern, shaded, marked by layers of privacy and restraint - but Rilian could see right inside them to the core of faith that bubbled up fountain-like within, shy and austerely bright. Her spartan face was plain as the bare, shingled walls of Rilian's own home - furnished so functionally that any double-dealing would have shown through like patches of damp - incapable of dishonesty. Rilian wanted to stand up and cheer for her. Instead, she cursed the perverse streak that made her say the most flippant things at the worst of times. She leaned towards her and whispered, "Well, if you're wrong, you'll at least be the bravest Templar in the Black City"…
She doubted Rylock had appreciated that - any more than she had appreciated it when she had joined the Wardens' army at the Hafter River, only to discover that Rilian had smuggled Jowan from Templar justice. Rilian knew that if anyone other than Ser Otto had been guarding him, Rylock would simply have shouldered him aside and arrested Jowan. She was sure Rylock had cursed her own weakness - her refusal to humiliate Ser Otto by using his blindness against him. She was also sure Rylock would go after Jowan as soon as she and Ser Otto were not there to protect him.
I know that Loghain and Rylock mean the best in the worst they do. Only - how far do good intentions excuse actions? Rylock murdered a fourteen-year-old boy who just wanted to go home - Loghain sent my people to be raped and used and worked to death. I remember Wynne, the day we stood before the Anvil: "The right of a single innocent soul has to stand against the "greater good" of billions - or we have made no progress in the last Age, and won't in the next."
I've seen Wynne pour out her own strength to save the lives of others. Who can question such power? Who can say it isn't greater than swords and arrows? To take life is so easy - the freeing of a bird from a flimsy, ugly cage. To create happiness, to create intelligence, to give meaning - that's power. I'll never bear a child - but I will give life in the only way I can. I'll save Jowan's. Somehow, I'm going to get him across the border, to join the Wardens of Montsimmard. Loghain will call it treason - Rylock will call it aiding a maleficar. And I'm sorry for that, because they truly are my friends. But I must do what I believe is right…
"Madam, I'm aware…"
Wynne held up a hand for silence. It fluttered in the dimness like a blind, white cave-creature. Long fingers adept at casting spells seemed to undulate. Shadows accentuated her high, sharp cheek-bones, intense, seeking eyes, the furrows of thought upon her forehead. At last, indefinably as a change in the weather, her features softened.
"You took a gamble, and you lost. Had things turned out differently you might have been a hero. Win the next battle for us, and you will be. The long run can be very long."
Bitterness warped Loghain's grin, made it cruel. "So I'm to be forgiven and loved if I win battles, and cursed if I lose?"
Wynne shrugged, unconcerned. "Mages have lived with that knowledge for generations. That's something we have in common, Loghain Mac Tir."
Loghain's low, dark chuckle acknowledged the point.
Mages, soldiers, Templars and Wardens - all tools of war. Well, one must be a slave to something in this kind of world; no-one is free. Except for a few brief moments now and then, when the soul slips over into eternity. All the rest of our years we serve the Circle, Ferelden, the Chantry, the Wardens: and right now, carrying the blood of the dragon of slaves inside me, preparing to die against the debased dragon of beauty - holiness torn apart and shamed - I think the latter is the hardest bondage of all…
But Rilian could not express her thoughts - had to button her mouth like a purse lest her plans for Jowan come tumbling out. Drinking always turned her mouth - overactive at the best of times - into a flapping torrent of gossip. The only safe strategy was to say absolutely nothing. Instead she idly plucked the strings of her lute - and drank, and played. The song was her goodbye, though the others did not know it:
Farewell, farewell, to you who would hear
You lonely travellers all
The cold north wind shall blow again
The winding road does call
And will you never return to see
Your bruised and beaten sons?
Oh I would, I would, if welcome I were
For they love me, every one
And will you never cut the cloth
Or drink the light-to-be?
And can you never swear a year
To anyone of we?
No, I will never cut the cloth
Or drink the light-to-be
But I'll swear a year to one who lies
Asleep alongside of me
Farewell, farewell…
The last silvery notes shimmered and sliced through the air like the patter of rain outside. The entire tent had taken on a dreamlike quality: it seemed filled with a haze of warmth and light that blurred shadowy corners to a series of soft impressions. Everything was unreal and strange as her Fade dream had been. Her limbs felt odd - not connected to her brain. Would they behave better if she spoke to them? Rilian watched as the empty cider bottle suddenly crashed to the floor and rolled across the tent. She stared at it as though it held the answer to her most important question. Loghain's table and chairs seemed to be moving - leaping and dancing like the guests at her wedding day…Nelaros…
Rilian sank backward on something warm and soft…things looked much steadier from this position: much safer than among all that leaping furniture. She loved Loghain, Wynne and Rylock better than anyone in the whole world - she would have told them so, had there not suddenly and unaccountably been six of them sitting there instead of just three.
"I love you all," she said instead, "I love you desperately - but now I must sleep..."
"Not on my bed, you don't," Loghain growled - but his voice came from very far away. Rilian stuck one leg in the air and wrestled unsuccessfully with her boot. Always, it eluded her...
"Would you mind helping me out here?"
"That's a very good question," said Loghain seriously, dropping his chin into his hands. "I'm glad you asked it. The answer, of course, is: Yes! I would mind."
Rilian let the leg drop and stuck out her lower lip. "Well that's just rude." She rolled pointedly away from him, flung her arms around her head and drew her knees up to her chest, to show him what she thought of him…
…It seemed she closed her eyes only for a moment. The next thing she knew she was lying in darkness, all the candles burned to nubs. A silvery edge of moonlight peeked through a gap in the tent to gild her surroundings in silver-white luminosity. There was a rustle of cloth. A hulking shadow entered the tent, backlit by a predawn sky that gleamed like a great silver lake. Rilian gazed up blearily.
"You've occupied my space for quite long enough," Loghain told her briskly, "Time to get back to your own tent, or the men will never believe that, of the four of us, you were the only one to sleep the sleep of the innocent and just." Loghain's clothes were drenched, his hair a wet grey-and-black curtain. He smelled of sweat and leather and musk.
Rilian blinked - suddenly feeling guilty. "I'm sorry I ruined the party by falling asleep." Rilian, like most twenty-year-olds, could not conceive of a group of middle-aged folk enjoying themselves on their own.
For some reason this seemed to amuse Loghain. "Oh - we managed tolerably well without you. Rylock had her prayer beads - she managed to get through the entire Chant before returning to her tent. Wynne had her knitting. And I decided to give the Ovaltine a try. Fortunately, I had my chamberpot nearby - the waterworks no longer being what they were."
Rilian knew something was off about this explanation - but couldn't for the life of her work out what. "Sometimes you say the strangest things."
"An occasional weakness," Loghain admitted ruefully, "You may put it down to my advancing age. Now - up!"
Rilian groaned. She now had a Dwarven marching band to accompany the Song that swelled in her head like a choir. Her mouth tasted like the inside of her backpack, after she had left Alistair's cheese in there for over a month. She struggled to her feet, blanket still draped over her shoulders, and would have pitched forward had Loghain not caught her.
With Loghain steering she managed to make unsteady progress out of his tent towards her own. The rain had stopped - her boots slithered and squeaked over wet grass like a pair of mice. The camp was just waking to life - Rilian careered past a Chantry sister carrying a pail of water. Loghain managed a stunningly graceful rescue of balance and dignity.
She made it to the side of her tent without vomiting. Then the lurid golden glow stabbed her eyes with a queasy explosion of nausea.
"That's it, Warden - show the men what you think of this overblown monstrosity. Give it another one for luck - but not on my boots."
Rilian did as she was bid and, chuckling, Loghain steered her inside…
…Straight into the malevolent, seeking point of Shianni's arrowhead.
"Whoa!" Rilian flared in shock, arms windmilling frantically. "Shianni - what!"
Amber eyes flicked over her body - Shianni's taut, desperate check that Rilian was physically unharmed. But her aim never waved - the needle-sharp point remained focused unerringly on Loghain's heart. Candlelight turned it to the notched fang of a snake, sensing human warmth and form. It called out with a hungry gleam.
Loghain met Shianni's acid glare and lethal arrow with inhuman composure. "I understand justice is owed for my involvement in slave-trade. The Chantry, Bann Sighard - and your own Bann, Valendrian - will raise the issue at the next Landsmeet. Until then, I have a war to win - and, quite frankly, I don't have to answer to you."
Shianni's mouth twisted. "You're absolutely right, shem - on the matter of your slave-trading, you don't have to answer to me. You'll get off with a human wrist-slapping - we don't expect justice. My cousin's honour, however, is a separate issue." Unable to rely on size or physical appearance for intimidation, Shianni tightened the bowstring: bone-hard, lethal fingers as steady as her eyes.
Rilian's throat was suddenly dry, achingly tight. "I'm so sorry I didn't come back in time! I got drunk and fell asleep. But I never...he never...he says I'm not fit to drink yet. And anyway - he's old!"
"Thank you, Warden, for that touching defence." Loghain regarded Shianni with a thin smile, and managed to soften the mood without belittling: "You've made it impossible for me to say anything that sounds sincere, but I'm still going to try. In days to come, I may ask your cousin's life - but I will never take her honour. As for you, young lady, the Warden is lucky to have you. People spend lifetimes searching for such loyalty and never finding it. At the Landsmeet, you may well get your justice - but until then I'll tolerate no threat to our victory. Remember that, and we'll both keep our lives free of arrows."
Loghain fell silent - and received from Shianni the look that accords grudging respect to a mortal enemy. He did not wait for her to lower the bow - turned away as if in unconcern and called over his shoulder:
"I'm calling a War Council in one hour, Warden!"
He left, and Rilian faced Shianni, looking at her as though she had never seen her before. The lambent eyes were familiar, as was the stance - a tigress defending her young; body thin and drawn and taut as a blade - the face pared down by graft and uncompromising pride. But...
"You're wearing the Vallaslin - the blood-writing. Oh, Shianni," Rilian whispered in hushed awe, "It's so beautiful!"
For Shianni had chosen the pattern that marked her adulthood, and the start of her new life among the Dalish - that reflected the face she wanted to wear. A very familiar design adorned her from the bridge of her nose to her forehead. The tracing of a tree blossomed out into myriad branches. But the pattern as a whole suggested something else - the places where skin had been left bare resembled nothing so much as the spread wings of a bird. It was the design Nelaros had created for Rilian's wedding ring - and that Shianni had woven into the scarlet-and-gold apron she had made for Rilian, so long ago.
"Winged vines - I can't think of anything more right," Rilian said softly, tears pricking her eyes. She looked at Shianni with an odd hesitancy - her cousin had blossomed into a woman before Rilian's eyes - had undergone a lonely rite and stood on a summit where she could not follow. "Did it - hurt?" she asked wonderingly.
"Humph," Shianni said gruffly, "Don't think your silver tongue will get you out of a scolding! I've never been so worried..."
Rilian hung her head. "I shouldn't have got so drunk," she said mournfully, "And I'm sorry I frightened you. But there wasn't a bit of real harm in sleeping in Loghain's tent..." Plaintively, she studied the warm familiarity of their tent and belongings, and the way the candlelight seemed to float on the air, pure and soft, reflecting in lucent swirls within Shianni's brilliant eyes.
"Oh, Rilian!" Shianni clucked as she headed purposefully to the weapon rack and reverently replaced the Dalish bow, "I put it to you: suppose you were a soldier following someone larger-than-life - a heroine, a symbol - and then she got involved in a sordid tryst with her own General and became the laughing-stock of the army? Would you still follow such a one into battle, and trust her to keep you from death? Honest, now?"
Rilian stared hard at the glittering warmth of the brazier for long moments. "Noooo," she said slowly, "I told you before: sometimes I need the - symbol - of something holy, when the reality seems far away. I know such legends are beautiful lies - but they're true to life as it should be and that's a better truth than the other. Only - that's different. I wouldn't know what it is to be a leader - that leaders are only mortal. That heroes have feet of clay."
"That's just the point, Ril. Other people can't know. So you have to keep up appearances. Now - you're going to show up at that War Council looking like Andraste reborn." Shianni took Rilian's hands - led her round the corner of the tent - and Rilian gave a little squeal of delight when she saw the tub that Shianni had filled to the brim with steaming water. A lump formed in Rilian's throat - it must have taken her hours to carry all that from the Drakon River - and countless pans heated at the fire.
She drew in a shuddering breath. The soft, homely glow of their tent, the glimmering angles of familiar objects, had never seemed more beautiful. Surroundings that had nothing to do with compromising situations or the prospect of an early death. She sprang forward and gave Shianni an impulsive hug. Taller than her cousin, Rilian had to crane her neck like an injured heron to rest her forehead against Shianni's. She felt the texture of skin and tattoos as both familiar and strange. The pattern of winged vines - done in green for life - was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. She began to sing, softly, a ballad she made up on the spur of the moment:
...Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life you've been only waiting
For this moment to arise...
Shianni shook her head, bemused. "How do you do that?" she asked, a little wonderingly, "Find words for things?"
Rilian shook her head. "Not everything," she said softly.
Shianni gave her a little push backwards and shooed her towards the tub. As her cousin laid out her spotless Dragonbone armour and a change of underclothing, Rilian stripped off her rumpled, sweat-stained tunic, trousers and boots and sank into the deliciously inviting water with a shiver of delight, wiggling her toes.
"Now scold me, cousin," she giggled, "Scold me hard."
As Shianni bustled about making a very familiar drink, Rilian heard again the full tale of her misdeeds: from the time she had walked home with Ser Otto, to the brandy incident, right down to her evenings drinking rot-gut by old Timon's smelly lean-to. The memory of that home-brew made her stomach lurch. The confrontation between Loghain and Shianni had inflicted a fierce sobriety - but the thought of attending War Council in an hour broke her out in a cold sweat. Shianni returned to the tub - carrying a glass of thick yellowish-brown liquid. This was the Elven style of Ovaltine: a heavy syrup half-way between cream and butter, made with runny eggs mixed into a paste with rich malt and fine yellowish flour.
"If this doesn't get you sobered up for the War Council, nothing will." Shianni handed Rilian the glass. "Don't look at it - don't smell it - just down it in one..."
Song inspirations for this one are:
The Wounded: Metallica - One
They Shall See Fire: Daniel Lanois - The Maker
Ril's Ballad: Fairport Convention - Farewell, Farewell (used in the scene)
Oh, Maker, It Is So Hard To Die: Queen - The Show Must Go On
Shianni: The Beatles - Blackbird (quoted by Ril)
AN: I do apologize! Both for taking so long to get this chapter out, and for only managing to get as far as the morning after! I meant to include my version of RTO, Morrigan's Offer, and the night before the final battle but, as always, I underestimated the chapter length. So, Chapter 16: The Last Dance, and Chapter Seventeen: The Abyss, The Well Of All Souls, will follow shortly.
I'd like to thank my readers and reviewers: icey cold (Edina to my Patsy, BAMF writer and partner-in-crime!), analect (fellow Alienage fan and world-builder), Josie Lange, Tyanilth, Shakespira (the Evil Triplets! Responsible for Gene crossing over to the darkside of fanfic, for Ovaltine, Antivan brandy and "this tent gets burned, and everything in it"! Yes, ladies - I think the Teyrn will want a word...), Graffiti My Soul (I know I promised more Alistair this chapter - but as it grew to monstrous length I had to save those scenes for the next part! Rest assured, we will be seeing much of the final battle from his POV), Judy, Psyche Sinclair, Arsinoe de Blassenville, Enaid Aderyn, Naomis8329, Herebedragons66, Persephone Chiara, lisakodysam, mutive and JackOfBladesX. Sorry it's taken me so long to update – cross my heart I'll have the next one up within a week! :)