Behind every tree is a cutting machine
and a kite fallen from grace
Inside every man is a heart of sand
I can see it in his face
The Captain and the Hourglass
Laura Marling
When you have fallen asleep listening to the music of the Golden City, it is something of an anti-climax to wake up to a face-full of ink. Rilian gasped and sputtered - looked around with bleary eyes and frantically tried to clean up the spilled bottle. She had slept with her head on the wooden table and her movement had knocked it over. On her hair - her face - thank the Maker it had missed her notes! Rilian knew she did not have the years left to make of her voice and playing an instrument that would do justice to last night's inspiration - but since the notes were there in black and white they could be sung by others. Leliana's talent far outstripped her own - she would bring the music to life...
Outside the hut, the night's rain sparkled over the pre-dawn camp. Between shimmering marsh-grasses and distant firs, the light was the colour of moss-weathered slate. The ground was muddy and churned with footprints: she saw the shrouded figure of Loghain on watch, and gave him a cheery wave. She trotted over to the pool where she had caught the fish - but it was too shallow and muddy for bathing. Rilian shrugged, remembering there was a deeper pool further out. She headed through ferny fronds to the place of the old Warden outpost - crumbled and stained with decay. The ceiling had collapsed: the pillars were like the skeleton of a building...green light poured through, striking an undulating rhythm like the surface of a lake. She ducked under a series of graceful archways - pale gleaming stone that curved like the ribs of some vast creature - thinking of the old Alienage superstition about walking under ladders. The courtyard where she had found the cache was a vibrant carpet of moss. Fallen statues were dotted here and there like giant chess pieces: remnants of a game between Man and Time that Man had lost. Only the Queen remained standing - Andraste, pale and unchanging.
Not so the marsh. Rilian trotted across what had once been the path - high ground that curved around a deep expanse of water. The banks of the lake were shrouded by constant movement: waving fronds, shifting shadows, and a whizzing storm of insects - bussing, stinging, wings shimmering in the silver light. For every beauty - the fat, waxy leaves of the plant whose flowers had cured Ravenous - the flight of a bird like a streak of jewelled light - she saw what seemed to be a corresponding ugliness - like the fuzzy grey spiders that clung to the overhanging branches. Even vegetation moved and shifted: the reeds and rushes writhing in the wind, the water plants bobbing with every ripple. The marsh was a tapestry in which every thread seemed to be in motion. The darkspawn had come and gone - the Taint had been absorbed and transmuted by the alchemy of creation. Everything was alive.
Rilian thought of the Brecilian forest, which was also a place of life, of deep roots and quiet power. That ageless green darkness had been old and settled. Like the Elves of Arlathan, it had found its own stately music, its own measured and unchanging pace. She remembered the Tevinter pillars - crumbled, surrounded by the trees that had outlasted them - had waited for the Elves to reclaim them. The Brecilian forest could easily remain just as it was until the end of time. The Korcari Wilds seemed to be reinventing themselves every moment. Rilian imagined returning in twenty years to find it a jungle so thick there would be no passage through it: a clot of green and black whose twining leaves shut out the light of the sun.
She continued to head south and west, following a familiar trail. There was the patch of deathroot Daveth had taught her to pick - there was the pile of rubble that had once been an altar. An altar that had taught her once and for all why curiosity had killed the cat. And there, below the overhang, lay the glittering glass dome that jutted from the steely grey water: the roof of a drowned cathedral. In the murky half-light, its colour was the dark green of a wine bottle. It was so perfectly round that Rilian saw it as a crystalline planet, suspended between a lake and sky of darkness. She thought of Habren's paperweight, and the bubble spheres within. Eagerly, she made her way down a slope of mud and scree, pushing past verdant fronds and stinging leaves, wanting to submerge herself in the water like a satellite to that floating orb. It would be the same experience she had at the docks - bathing in an icy, jet-black sea that flayed her skin like knives, staring up at ghostly ships whose masts were like trees, jutting into the night sky and its numinous stars. Floating in the dark and silence, she had felt both utterly inconsequential and supremely important, as if she were the fulcrum on which sea and stars turned.
She headed down the embankment, towards the mirror-like water's edge, the chill in the air making the fine hairs stand up on her arms. She found someone had beaten her to it: Rylock was already at the water, lean-muscled body encased in the steel tower of her Templar armour.
"You're up early," she called out cheerfully.
"I have morning prayers," was the stiff response.
Rilian sighed, and wiggled her boot heel about in the cold silty mud, making little rivulets of water trickle like snail-trails.
"I wanted to lie in this morning" she said disconsolately, "Six months in the field and five years as a docker have ruined me. I used to love being lazy - my cousin always had to wake me, and even then I'd hide under the covers..."
As though the memory of Shianni had magically called the sound, Rylock sniffed. Rilian stared, eyes wide, and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle.
"You'd have made a poor Chantry Child," Rylock said tartly, "Revered Mother Leanna would have switched you until you were glad to get up."
"Switched? All you little girls?"
"Of course. It is the way."
A sudden vivid memory of the Revered Mother of Denerim - Mother Boann's replacement - flashed into Rilian's mind: the attempt to bully Rylock into remaining in Denerim, the silent, dire threat, the ugly mouth and stone-grey, merciless eyes.
"And is that why you rise early - because that horrible old woman whipped you into it as a child?" she blurted, in mounting indignation.
Rylock's face Chantrified - as Rilian thought of it - mouth drawing downward into a thin line of offence.
"I rise early to greet the Maker. Because I believe in why I greet the Maker. My prayers are not a trick to avoid punishment."
"I'm sorry - I didn't mean it like that," Rilian said quickly, "I guess I should pray too - but I haven't felt much like it since…since after the battle. It seems to me," she added bitterly, "That if the Maker were doing all he ought to we wouldn't be here."
Rilian had expected anger from the Knight-Commander over that - but Rylock looked too genuinely astonished to be angry. "And do you expect the Maker to come down personally to save us from the darkspawn?" she asked disbelievingly, "After Mankind's own sin caused him to abandon us? It is we who have a duty to the Maker and not the other way round."
"Ask not what the Maker can do for you but what you can do for the Maker," Rilian paraphrased with a sad little smile. "I think you may be right. But I…can't…feel that way." Because if the Maker is anything like a parent I don't see how he could abandon us. But I only think that because I have a father who'd do anything for me - what makes my viewpoint more valid than hers?
"What about the Urn of Sacred Ashes?" she pointed out, "Have I ever told you the story of how I recovered them?"
"Yes," said Rylock, rather shortly. Rilian smirked - could the Knight Commander actually be jealous? To be fair, she had told Rylock the story several times already: the first when persuading her to rally her Templars against the darkspawn and the latest last night, set to music. Ah well - it was a good story, and well worth hearing again:
"The nights were dark in the village of Haven. Alistair, Wynne, Leliana and I came up the mountain trail on a rainy summer night. The sentry on duty wasn't very welcoming. Anyway, we nosed around for a bit and came to an inn. When Alistair and I went to bring our horses to the stable we came upon a ghastly sight…"
Rilian went on to describe their discovery of the decaying body of one of Arl Eamon's knights. She told of breaking into the false Chantry with flair and aplomb, and when she got to the part about slaying Revered Father Eirik, in reality an apostate mage, she noted gleefully that Rylock was definitely jealous - her usually inexpressive dark eyes were faintly wistful. For all her avowed disinterest, the Knight Commander listened with the kind of single-minded absorption Rilian had only encountered in the quiet, dedicated Owain from the Circle Tower. She was a good audience.
"…When we reached the white aerie that was the summit it was a moment of pure silence and peace." Rilian relived that strange piercing moment - the same faint little far-off echo of Elven immortality she heard during music, or seeing the fragments of light swirling from a stained glass window. "If I ever built a place of worship I'd do it on a mountaintop - where we could see the world spread like a carpet of riches and dream of flying… Anyway, we had to answer riddles and battle these twisted reflections of ourselves - rather like the darkspawn are said to be reflections of Man's own heart…and when we solved the puzzle of the stepping stones we had to walk naked through fire as a final test of faith. It did not burn," Rilian finished wonderingly, "It was like the words you said when we sent those poor souls to the Maker: "They shall see fire and go towards Light..."
She trailed off, and found Rylock looking through her with a strange abstractedness, as though what Rilian had said had triggered a wide range of half-formed ideas. Rilian sometimes had visions of her friends - of Shianni - as they would be when they were older; now it worked the other way and she saw the gawky, self-contained, slightly sullen Chantry child, plain face marked by its purity of thought and dark eyes lit from within by tamped-down, semi-crushed yearning: the sombre desire to do right as she understood it.
"I have never felt the Maker in high places nor even in the Chantry," Rylock blurted suddenly - the revelation springing without thought like flowers from rain, "But sometimes, when fighting demons - when meeting the eyes of creatures that would unmake me if I looked too long - feeling nothing beyond the balance of a sword of mercy, I look back afterwards and: there He was. Doing the work I'm fitted for - having it make a difference that it was I and not another - then I know He sees me."
Moved far past words, Rilian could only stare - and nod. Also more comfortable in silence, Rylock turned away, bent knee, and began to recite that day's verse from the Chant in her dry, clipped soldier's voice. Rilian sat more comfortably, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped about her shins - as she had often sat by the Vhenadahl back home - and watched the sun rise over the Wilds, waking birds and plants and animals to life. Like Elves, they could survive anywhere, she thought dreamily, enduring the Blight as roots sleep through winter.
The first slanting rays of sunlight broke through the steel-bellied clouds with blinding exuberance. Fingers of light splayed across the dark grey water with cold golden intensity. Near-horizontal sheets of pure energy limned the verdant fronds and steeply-pitched banks. Striated cloud banks gleamed in sudden splendour, burnished to bright, seething colour.
The splash of light fell upon the dome - and at once the dark-green glass shimmered into translucent luminosity. Pale and sea green, it blazed like a stained glass window to an underwater world. The light itself was thick - almost greasy - falling like green rain upon weirdly vibrant and changing life.
"Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew," Rilian murmured.
Rylock looked up. "We are on Eruditions 12, not Andraste 14," she corrected.
"No, silly!" Rilian waved her arms as though to take in everything, all at once. "Look." Light played across water in intricate, unceasing changes, as though it were a curl of foam at the boiling edge of creation
Rylock looked up - and Rilian could tell she understood because of the way her taut, gracile body began to relax in slow increments, as though easing back into herself. Rilian, too, felt a weight lift from her being. The scars of recent events: the deaths, the Tevinter plague, Arl Howe's violation, seemed curiously far away. She knew Rylock had suffered a similar experience - knew it because of the twitchy reflexes, the sleepless nights, the odd brittleness about the eyes. They recognised that in each other like veterans of similar campaigns, and enjoyed the peace in silence. When the world was ceaselessly recreating itself on every side, it was impossible not to feel as if they, too, were being cleansed and made new.
"What are all these bones?" Rilian asked, as the party made their way across the Wilds, heading south-west towards Ostagar's side gate. The ground was flatter here - firmer - and dotted with a jumble of spines and rib-cages like the bleached hulls of ruined ships, strangely white against the mud. "I hope they belong to animals."
"We are all animals," Loghain muttered.
"What are you trying to do, Loghain - frighten her?" Wynne snapped, "It's obvious these weren't human remains."
Loghain only grunted. He had been in a foul mood ever since they left the hut. Rilian guessed this was because he had been by far the greatest target for the local insect life - his dour face was covered in bites - and forgave him his short temper.
"The prey of that abomination on the hill," he growled.
Unlike Wynne, Rilian understood he had cause to fear Flemeth. The Witch had told her of her words to Maric: "Keep him close and he will betray you - each time worse than the last." Rilian had used those words to convince Loghain she really had been saved from Ishal by Flemeth, and not by some Warden plot. She understood why Loghain hated Flemeth - but to her knowledge the prophecy had been wrong. Loghain had not betrayed Maric - the friend who had once asked him never to put the King before the Kingdom. Why did she tell him that? Rilian wondered. She understood that words, even by themselves, held power. "Speak no evil," Aunt Elva had once said, "Four tiny demons lurk everywhere just waiting to catch your words and use them to tip their arrows with poison." Who knows where they go once they're spoken aloud; they drift off like seeds in the wind. Flemeth had a mind gone rotten like a piece of old fruit. Who knows what strange prodigies will hatch from it?
They passed through an enormous archway, still standing within a pool of water, as if inviting them into the wilderness. Nearby were two carved standing stones - one tall, one short. A father and son, Rilian thought wistfully, glad that she had insisted on burying the two missionaries when she, Alistair, Daveth and Jory had passed this way. All around her were familiar landmarks - memories of the time they had explored this place, searching for darkspawn blood. Daveth and Jory were dead - Alistair would never forgive her.
The Night Elves were following the Chasind trail signs - it brought them to a flatland of sodden marsh grasses and a ledge that had once housed a pack of wolves. Ostagar was very close now - but the dying light brought worried glances from Wynne and Surana. Horrible as the ruins would be in daylight, they would be unspeakable in darkness. The ledge led down to a path so draped with the fronds of leaning ferns that it seemed hung with a solid green curtain. It opened out into a quiet little pool and flat meadow. Rilian thought it a wonderful place to stop - it seemed an airy paradise after the wet and tangled trail - and was about to say so when Wynne beat her to it. They set up camp, with Aris, Surana, Murl and Alim keeping watch and Loghain hunting.
Tonight's meal was plain compared with yesterday's fish - Loghain had brought down a couple of stringy marsh-birds, which they mixed with Merril's cuts of roast boar. Rilian sidled forward and sniffed the peppery mixture. She wrinkled her nose.
"Too much for your refined sensibilities, Warden?"
Rilian turned towards Loghain's dour voice and did her best Habren impression. "I expected caviar at least."
"City Elves!" grinned Surana, moving with his usual lethal grace to stand beside his commander, "It's good for you. The pepper preserves the meat. We won't have to set so many snares." He glanced meaningfully toward the direction of Ostagar - that city of tombstones, mercifully hidden from view.
"The darkspawn." Rilian nodded thoughtfully. "I'd forgotten about them. I feel a terrible craving for pepper."
Loghain barked a laugh. "Taste's a peculiar thing, isn't it?"
The group camped beside an orange fire whose flames shone against a lilac-and-rose sky. This close to the ruins, the conversation was muted - each man or woman absorbed in their own thoughts. Rilian found Rylock, drying her battered leather gloves. Her thin, hard-muscled forearms were a mass of silvery striations: in places puckered, in places satin. The skin across palms that would no longer callus looked fragile as moth wings, studded with raw patches. Rilian remembered something, smiled, and rummaged in her backpack.
"Here," she offered, a little shyly, "A gift from Master Varathorn."
Rylock looked blank - studying the elbow-high protective gloves as though not sure how they related to her. 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 - who had had the idea when seeing Shianni use them - knew Rylock could not object to the Dalish enchantments when her own Templar armour was traced with lyrium runes. She smiled. She planned to give Loghain her map of the Anderfels and Wynne a book on the uses of dragon's blood, to remember her by.
"Take them, silly," Rilian said, laughing - but for some reason she made no immediate move to release them. Their gazes met. Only someone who knew Rylock as well as she did could have discerned in that seemingly unmoved face the slightest tinge of shy appreciation.
"Thank you," she said. When she put them on they fit perfectly. She raced to pick up her sword, and the swirl in her dark eyes was that of a child eager to try out a wholly unexpected gift. She walked - had it been anyone else it might have been said that she bounded - over to the patch of flat grassland, to practice sword-forms.
"You should join me, Warden," she offered, "You've had no practice with that new sword."
Rilian grinned and headed over. She made a little bow to acknowledge her audience - most of the Night Elves, Wynne, and Loghain. Loghain snorted.
Her enjoyment was dampened by the discovery that she could hardly keep the sword straight. Rilian was lethal with daggers - and had done alright with the light, curved Dalish blade - but she could no more handle the Ferelden sword than she could a plank of wood. She scowled at Rylock, wondering if the Templar would make some pointed reference to her pretensions of being the Elven Andraste. Rylock had a wit that, however infrequently used, could be murderous. But Rylock's expression remained matter-of-fact. She set about aiming practice strikes, letting Rilian block them, sharpening up her defence.
...So here I am, surrounded by smirking Night Elves, with a big bad Templar whacking me with a sword of mercy. Like I'm some kind of Blood Mage. Thunk! She hits like a hammer. Like ten hammers. Like a battering ram, in fact. Ouch! (Missed again)...
"Alright, Warden, that's enough."
...I should bloody well think so...
"Do you see what your problem is?"
...Wait, don't tell me - you are...
"No."
"You were trained by a much heavier man - close to your height, but much stronger. In fact, I'd say you were trained by a dwarf."
...Well, I'll be damned - how could she know that? Brosca and I always kept it quiet, the Alienage rules being what they were. I didn't even tell Ser Otto...
"You don't use your weight to your best advantage. And you're holding your weapon too low. Here: try again..."
Thunk!
Rylock's blade came down hard on Rilian's. There was a clang of steel on steel.
...Whew! Just in time...
Rilian darted to the left, using her superior speed to go for Rylock's side - to that sliver of an opening created by the Templar's forward strike. Rylock's blade glided backward in a move that seemed strange and quick and mysterious. There was a squeal and a scrape as Rilian found herself blocked.
"Good," Rylock acknowledged - a rare moment of praise.
...There! A breach - but she dodges away. Watch her. Watch her feet...
"Where's your defence, Warden? Up! Up! Do you think I'm aiming for your kneecaps?"
...Thunk! Damn - she's always too quick. She surges forward and it's time to retreat. In a sword-to-sword push, there won't be any contest...
"What are you doing? The right flank, Warden - look at it! No, sorry. Too late now."
...Edging around the grass circle, looking for a hole in her defence. Feint to the right. She swings!...
Rylock lunged in with an elegant move that she turned into a looping drive for Rilian's hilt. Her blade glided around Rilian's wrist to hammer her crosspiece. Impact ached through Rilian's fingers - she lost her grip. The instincts honed against Vaughan and Howe told her to dive for the falling weapon before checking she still had her fingers - but even as she moved Rylock's sword licked forward. Rilian felt cold steel at her throat and froze.
Beaten, Rilian straightened up with a rueful grin - and looked at Rylock a little reproachfully as she pointedly checked each of her fingers.
"We Templars have been taught that move since the time of Kordilius Drakon," Rylock said, a trifle defensively, "There was no risk of injury."
Rilian shot her a dubious look - but Rylock was pursuing a different train of thought:
"Have you ever used a Ferelden blade before?" she wanted to know.
"Nope. Somehow I never got round to stealing one."
Will she or won't she?
Rylock chose to ignore the comment, face expressionless. "Quite," she said at last, "Then I suspect you will find better results with an Orlesian blade. They are lighter and better-balanced." At this, a low growl came from Loghain's place in the audience, but Rylock ignored him. "All our swords are Orlesian - the best available. I'll find you one when we return to camp. I'll check the weight myself, just to make certain."
Rilian smiled - a pleasure that turned to fury as she heard the first faint notes of "The Warden Slays The Darkspawn General" hummed by Loghain. She glared at him and he responded with a maddening smirk. He looked up - towards the flesh-pink sky - then down again. Back down his long, long nose at the midget Elf who couldn't even handle a decent Ferelden sword.
...Go boil your head, pus-bag...
"Just remember to keep your defence high," Rylock continued, giving no sign that Loghain's tune had reached her ears, "It's unlikely that I'll ever try to break your guard below the waist."
"From your height, you'd have to go grovelling around on your knees to do that," Loghain observed, eyeing the scrawny Elf and six-foot Templar.
"Right, that's it!" Rilian growled, "I'll show you how City Elves fight, old man!"
"Will you now?" Loghain asked mildly, "I did not see the rest of your family lurking, about to ambush me."
Loghain had meant the remark teasingly - but it brought echoes of another voice, another day:
...Because Elves run in packs, like rodents...
It was true enough that City Eves were a danger to shems only when a drunken human stumbled into the worst parts of the Alienage and was set upon by feral gangs. Rilian had dreamed of something more - of fighting magnificently, nobly, not out of sordid desperation. She vividly remembered the very first symbol of heroism she had seen - and the darkness that soon followed...
...The Landsmeet chamber glittered like an enormous golden sphere. Rilian teetered dangerously on lethal heels - the first and only time she had ever worn them. Even Elven wedding shoes were flat - dainty slippers beaded with loving care - shoes with heels were a shem invention. Her green satin dress - chosen by Adaia to complement her hair - prickled like a spider's web around her. Her heart pounded in a mixture of confusion and excitement. She did not know what she was doing here - why her mother had taken her along for the first time as she played and sang for the shems. Or why Adaia and Cyrion had argued bitterly.
Adaia made a discreet gesture toward a golden young man:
"That's Cailan - the future King," she whispered, "I would like you to direct your song to him tonight. He loves to hear tales of heroes and dragons." Her mother smiled - but something hidden moved in the depths of her eyes. Adaia had so often seemed to be part of another world - a glamorous, exciting one - but one that left strange scars and black moods. Rilian shared her garden of dreams - but didn't understand the darkness in the corners.
Rilian wriggled in the tight dress - self-conscious because her mother had insisted on padding in the front - something no Elven woman would be seen dead in. She was relieved that they had left before Shianni and Cyrion returned from work. Her attention was not on Cailan - who seemed rather uninteresting - but on his father, the King - on the pale gleaming blade studded with runes that glowed a fierce azure. She spun castles in the air - dreams in which she wielded that blade, protecting her people against many faceless enemies in a blaze of light - and came back to earth to find her mother gone and the King's son looming over her.
She blinked in startlement and dropped into a graceless curtsey.
"Come and see me later," Cailan said, with a dazzling smile.
Rilian coughed and sputtered. "Oh - I couldn't do that, sire. Father expects me back by midnight."
"I'm sure," Cailan said delicately, "He will understand."
"Oh no - he really wouldn't. I always do what my father says - and you should too. Why, I'm only fourteen."
Cailan actually blushed - and stammered something about having thought she was older. Rilian smiled, to try to put him at ease. "I have trouble guessing sh...human ages too," she reassured him - aware for the first time that the tall hawk-like man behind the prince was stifling a snort of laughter.
"Come, come, Cailan," the old warrior put a gauntleted hand on the young man's shoulder, drawing him away. "An early night would not go amiss. I expect to see you on the practice field at first light." The hawk-faced man was, unaccountably, enjoying himself - just as Cailan unmistakably wasn't.
But Adaia was nowhere to be seen - and Rilian did not find her before Cyrion arrived, face tight and drawn, to take her home...
What followed was something Rilian had never been able to understand. Soris running to father: "They've arrested her - they say she took something from the King's chambers!" - the joyful tapestry of their lives unravelling like wool - its colours faded by rain and trampled into mud by the boots of shem guards. Adaia's imprisonment and terrible punishment. Rilian remembered those days as a series of images: pictures frozen in time, with dark spaces of horror between.
…Cyrion's eyes were like fractured chips of green glass. His sallow cheeks trembled with some hidden question. A terrible weight sat on his shoulders. "Adaia - why were you there?"
There was a note of pleading in Adaia's voice. "What do you want me to say? Yes, I went to the King's chambers. He wanted to see me."
"And?"
"And…and what? I - I - I…" Then her voice was no longer pleading. A shrill cry came from her throat. "You know me, Cyrion. I play the bard sometimes. I make things beautiful - better than they are. But I never lie unless I can make a lie come true. Cyrion, I can never lie to you!"
The house shuddered from the cry. Rilian's parents stood staring through each other's eyes…searching…sharing a truth she didn't understand. And, as her father stared, the thinness of his nostrils quivered.
The house shuddered. Cyrion looked like he wanted to fall, to hold onto something for support. Instead he bit down so hard the skin rippled over his jaws. Everything in the house followed the same contortions. The air writhed in agony.
"Father!" Rilian cried. The cruelty of the moment had pierced her deeply. She had to bring things back to normal: for her and for Shianni, standing by her side. "Mother." Adaia looked through her as though she were a stranger. "Marjolaine," she babbled on desperately, "That shem woman who came to the house to collect your papers. She said even now you are the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. Yes, she did. And I felt so proud…"
"Proud? Proud indeed!" Rilian recoiled from the venom of her words. "It is a trick! This thing beauty they talk about. Believe me, it is a low trick put out by the Maker." Her face was flushed with anger and fever; her eyes were glittering febrile blisters. "He puts meaning into beauty, then reduces the meaning to nothing. 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 dreamed of using my beauty and my body and my wits to buy luxuries we never dreamed of. 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, He reaches out and destroys even that shell leaving you with nothing. Do you hear? Do you see? Nothing!"
She held up her left arm - and then the right. Rilian and Shianni stared at the terrible lopped stump: puffed up angrily, the stitches drawn so tight it seemed they must tear out of the swollen flesh.
Even her father seemed not so strong now. He had always been like the strength of the Vhenadahl: old, gnarled branches that bent but never broke. Now he was just standing, a helpless part of their pain. Throwing a glance around the room, he said to no-one in particular, "I have to go to work."
Shianni and Rilian remained, staring at each other, with the burden burning in their shifting eyes: the memory of the lines that criss-crossed like shifting roots, the map of scars where the right hand had been. More painful because of the contrast with the other hand, with its long, slender fingers that drew chords of glory…so elegant that it had to be etched in both their minds as beauty's standard…
Rilian did not understand the words - did not understand what had passed between Adaia and the King - or Adaia and the human bard who had come for the papers. But from that day she had dreamed of using Maric's blade to bring justice - in memory of her lovely, laughing mother whose name, for five bitter years, had never crossed her father's lips.
The sword's a dream, Rilian thought - in a voice remarkably like Shianni's - but the lessons of Ser Otto and Brosca are not. Nor my own wits...
"No, I didn't bring my family," she assured Loghain innocently, "I just thought we could have a tournament. Say: you and Rylock first, and I'll fight the winner."
Loghain nodded thoughtfully - the gleam in his hawk's face overriding his suspicions of Rilian's motives. Rylock, too, held a gleam of repressed eagerness in her dark, keen eyes. Rilian smiled, and settled back contentedly to watch the show, wondering if events would unfold as she had planned.
Rylock was the quicker, her spare, lean body moving with grace and assurance as she tested Loghain's defenses, relying on Orlesian training against this non-mage opponent. But Loghain was the stronger and more ruthless - giving way when he had to, but always pushing on. The eyes that glared from the predator's face were hard, merciless flint, their flawed centres glowing with feral light like ice on fire. Loghain, Rylock, Rilian and Wynne all shared one trait: that indomitable quality of will which would see the body it drove broken apart rather than yield.
Rylock swept her sword of mercy forward with enormous speed followed by another cut and another as Loghain blocked. He just managed to block each stroke as she jabbed and thrust. Then Rylock struck - swift and fluid as pale lightning. Loghain did not block the blow this time - he simply moved to one side, barely at all. The stroke of the sword missed - by the breath of a gnat's wing. Then another jab that Loghain side-stepped, snake-fast though it was.
Then, for the first time, Loghain struck a blow himself. Rylock parried, but only just. Stroke after stroke rained down as Loghain's superior strength pushed her off-balance.
Rylock feinted toward Loghain's body, then chopped swiftly from the side, shortening her backstroke so her movements were harder to read. Minutes later she repeated the move she'd used on Rilian, disarming Loghain. Instead of giving up or going for his blade, Loghain dropped down and kicked out - a scissors chop of his legs that sent Rylock sprawling. The two of them wrestled on the ground, fighting for control of her blade, so close that breath and sweat intermingled. Every finely honed muscle in Rylock's lean body tensed as she tried to throw him off – to no avail. Loghain's heavy muscles and superior ruthlessness were inexorable. In fact, Rilian thought he seemed curiously reluctant to end the spar and rise to his feet. A moment later she shook her head at her own over-active imagination. Loghain got up, sword of mercy pointed at Rylock's throat. Rylock acknowledged defeat with a curt nod. He held out a hand to her and she reluctantly took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
Loghain's eyes were more interested than triumphant. "That last blow," he said, "You nearly had me." Tracing a bright scuff on his armour, he said, "Look at that," scarcely believing.
"The opening was there."
"There was no opening. You created one. You may be the very best. If you forget the Orlesian flourishes. If you remember that fighting isn't an art."
Then he turned to Rilian, a wolf's grin quirking the corners of his feral mouth. "If you were hoping she'd tire me out, you've over-played your hand - I still have enough in me to take on an upstart Elf."
Rilian gave a vulpine grin. Let Loghain think he'd won. It was true enough that he still had enough strength to defeat her - if she played fair.
Alienage Elves never did.
She kept her face carefully blank - letting him think he'd called her bluff - and moved into position. She didn't need Loghain to be tired enough to lose to her sword - only tired enough that his reactions were just a little slower than normal. His duel with Rylock had ended exactly as she'd expected.
They faced each other in silence - then moved simultaneously. Loghain's powerful legs pumped him forward - sword leading. Rilian ducked and rolled to the side - then dropped her own sword with a careless clatter, darted behind him, and leapt for his back like a tiger. Arms and legs wrapped about him, she drew a hidden dagger from her bard's dancing shoes and held it to his throat.
Loghain growled - but could hardly complain about bad sportsmanship after his words to Rylock. He shook her off the way a dog shakes off water. Rilian smiled smugly.
"That's all very well, Warden," he growled, "But had you faced me at the Landsmeet you would not have been able to use your Templar to soften me up."
"I know," Rilian grinned wickedly, "But I wouldn't need to. I think you know that Anora and I would have won the first round - you would have been forced to challenge us, and not the other way round."
"So?"
"So I would remind you of Article 17 of Calenhad's Law: the person challenged gets to decide the particulars."
This she had learned from Ser Otto - during the years of teaching that had prepared her to seek justice for her people. His plans had been wasted by her actions with Vaughan - but came to her aid now, just as Brosca's training in gutter fighting had.
Rilian grinned ferally as she saw the knowledge go through Loghain like slow ice. The law was rarely used at Landsmeets for the simple reason that Ferelden nobles tended to fight in the same way, with the same weapons. But Rilian could have demanded the right had she wished.
"I would have chosen daggers," Rilian informed him. And then - for good measure - added insolently: "I'd have split you from arsehole to cakehole."
Wynne joined them then, eager to diffuse the situation. Her pale hair, loose from its bun, was light and fine as dandelion seeds, fluttering in the breeze.
"I've found a lake a short distance away," she informed them. "The water is fresh and clean."
"Clean," Rilian gave a little sigh of pleasure, "An important word. Well - ladies first. Here: you can carry my backpack." She dumped it in Loghain's hands.
Loghain's jaw worked exactly like Wynne's problem horse. He let the pack fall with a careless shrug and gestured to his men. "Time to wash." Rilian hissed with indignation. "Where I was brought up it's considered indecent for a woman to bathe with a man not her husband."
"Well," said Loghain smugly, "I was brought up to bathe whenever I felt dirty."
Rylock remained impassive, and if the Templar felt uncomfortable she did not show it.
"We need not look," she said stiffly.
"Don't worry, Warden," Loghain added, sticking the knife in, "I'll keep my gaze to where there's interesting stuff to look at."
A curious look crossed Wynne's face - her expression had turned to vinegar but her lips twitched guiltily. Rilian gave him a haughty glare and stomped off, head held high and back stiff with outrage, towards the pool.
It turned out to be more private than she'd expected. Above the larger lake was a secluded rainwater pool. It was a tiny canyon - a mere wrinkle in the hillside, less than a stone's throw from end to end. The bottom was almost entirely filled with a standing pond choked with hyacinths and water lilies and long trailing grasses.
"Oh Wynne it's beautiful!" Rilian gave a little sigh of pleasure. They could hear the yells and laughter as Loghain and the Elves took over the lake, but the long fringe of marsh grasses shielded them from view. She undressed, enjoying the evening warmth that was one of the few nice things about the marsh, and waded in. Rylock and Wynne followed suit.
The bottom of the pool was covered with soft, firm mud that felt good beneath her toes. The grasses that loomed so closely and dropped so low, greedy for water, made her feel protected and secluded. After wading half-way around the edge of the pool, she found a spot where the grass grew thick beneath the surface. She sat on it as though it were a carpet, sinking down until the water almost reached her chin. Arching back in a spine-cracking stretch of sheer exuberance, she settled onto her elbows until only her head, breasts and kneecaps were exposed. Water swirled and eddied around her in mock rapids. Wynne followed her example, letting the water tug her fine pale hair in a rippling cloak behind her. Rylock remained businesslike, washing hair and body in quick, efficient strokes. Rilian paddled about, pretending to swim. Her waves washed across Wynne's face. The mage burlesqued drowning - then slapped water at Rilian. Rilian, showing no favoritism, doused both Wynne and an indignant Rylock. Splashing and giggling like a child, Rilian gave herself up to the moment, rejecting the world as it was for life as it should be.
In the softness of dusk, the grasses swayed gracefully on the banks of the pool. Far away, Ravenous sang of the day's hunt, lifting his voice in a spine-tingling howl. Swallows and bats wove across a muted sunset.
Rilian splashed water on her face, then wetted her hair and tried to loosen Shianni's braids. With a sad little smile, she recalled how Nelaros coming early to their wedding had sent her into a panic: because her hair had not yet begun to grow out of its docker's cut. How Nelaros had told her she was beautiful and swung her thorough the Elven dances - how for the first time in her life she had felt delicate and light as a feather. Now, six months later, it was growing out - she could not treat it as carelessly as she had of late. Wynne helped her, and after they had washed each other's hair they simply sat for awhile, listening to the racket of birds and the warm wind moving the grasses.
Rylock got out first, and Rilian towelled her dry. The Templar stood unmoving through it all with her usual stoicism. Then Wynne rose from the water. Tiny droplets formed a glittering net over her many complex curves. Lines of age, of life experience, formed a silvery spiderweb. Her skin was pale as Dragonbone and her magic cast it with a nascent luminosity: marble-white as a statue of Andraste.
"Here," Rilian challenged Rylock, thrusting the drying cloth into her hands. "Or do you think her magic might rub off on you?"
Rylock was just standing there, staring at Wynne as though in a trance.
Rilian giggled. "Maker! Anyone would think you were a knight and Wynne a maiden you were too scared to touch!"
With the air of one taking refuge in technicalities, Rylock muttered: ""I am a knight."
"Well, don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Rilian snickered, and gave Rylock a little push forward, vastly pleased with herself.
Rylock shot her one acid glare before towelling Wynne so vigorously the mage laughingly complained she'd rather freeze to death than be pummelled to death.
Then, singing, Rilian led them back to camp. She carried her armour, wearing only her griffin tunic, black leggings and bard's dancing shoes. They hoarded the scent of the soap. She enjoyed the briskness of the wind that nipped at flesh without being able to touch the inner warmth beneath it. She felt snug, immaculately clean, and wonderfully refreshed.
Wynne bustled about in the fading light, harvesting the roots and soft, lance-shaped leaves of a plant she called valerian. Rylock busied herself tending to the tethered horses. She stroked the muscular, arched necks, ran her hands across the smooth, warm sides. Even Wynne's stubborn horse responded to her. Rilian smiled to herself, thinking that animals understood more than people. Ravenous bounded towards her and Rilian dropped down, meeting the liquid dark eyes and playing with the tufts of hair behind the soft folds of his ears. Rilian buried her face in his powerful shoulder, irritated as she found her thoughts drifting to Alistair. At first she told herself she missed him because he was the only other Warden. That lie stung, and she substituted one that said it was natural to worry about such a close friend. When she admitted why she was so afraid for him the familiar pain returned. Her shoulders jerked awkwardly. Her hand, tracing the long sweep of Ravenous' neck, stilled. A soft eye blinked reproach.
Darkness brought worse times. Awake, when her mind sparked with memories of his face, his touch, she could consciously extinguish them. Asleep, dreams came in unending, inescapable parade. Her face warmed; she sighed. There was no point dissembling. After all, she was going to die before seeing him again. What sense was there in denying her love?
Ravenous nodded vigorously. Rilian chuckled at the timing. "You do understand, don't you?"
Together, Wynne and Rylock set up their tent. Rilian joined them when they were done, Ravenous curling up outside. She crawled through the tent-flap, finding herself in a peaceful darkness lit by the soft gleam of an orange candle. As her eyes adjusted, other familiar shapes decoded themselves. It was easy to see which side was which: Wynne's held her staff and more books than she could comfortably stack - Rylock's held her sword, sunshield, and hard prayer mat. Rylock was in the midst of doffing her armour. Rilian made out a familiar pattern across her hard shoulderblades and spine like Dragonbone: the same regular ridges she herself possessed.
"How did you get yours?" she asked with friendly curiosity.
Rylock started - about to tell her to mind her own business. But Rylock did not stand on her dignity in the way that Loghain would - her honesty trumped it.
"The sin of pride," she said succinctly.
Rilian laughed softly. "Hey, that's me as well! Habren used to tell me I was sick with pride - and every evening her strap used to take most of it away…but not quite all."
"Yes, she seems to have succeeded very ill so far," Rylock agreed.
Rilian giggled. "Well - it takes one to know one!"
"Are you by any chance intimating that I am proud, Warden?" Rylock wanted to know - but Rilian could tell she wasn't really annoyed.
She settled down between Rylock and Wynne, wriggling into the covers. Templar and mage both picked up books - and Rilian had the strangest feeling they were reading at each other. Wynne's choice was "The Search For The True Prophet" - Rylock was reading the Chant. When she had finished she closed the book reverently, and Rilian listened as she moved quietly to the prayer mat and knelt down. Both Rylock and Wynne smelled faintly of lyrium: a pale, crisp scent like bottled lightning.
Sleep came quickly for Rilian - but dreams chased her. She woke with a start and a small, anxious cry that had Wynne and Rylock staring at her in concern.
Rilian sat up, arms folded across her raised knees, head resting on her forearms. She said: "Can I ask you both a question? You won't think I'm crazy?"
Wynne laughed. "That depends on the question." When Rilian failed to smile she sobered. "What's bothering you?"
"I have a dream. Often. The same one."
"They say Andraste heard the Maker's voice in dreams," Rylock said suddenly. "This is not supposed to happen now, but the Chantry claims all Templars, and some of us dream." A surprising admission from out of the darkness.
Rilian waited for Wynne to make the inevitable connection between mages and Templars - something Rylock clearly hadn't thought of - but for once Wynne was interested in something other than continuing their argument.
"I agree. We shouldn't be afraid of something just because we don't understand it. Does it frighten you?"
Rilian nodded, face pressed in a confused frown. "I don't know why; it's not that scary. It's a burning hot day, and I'm in the cool shade of a tree, with a horse. The horse is beautiful: a red horse, with delicate ears and bone structure. It's thin: skin and bones. That makes me terribly sad. The tree is of silver, and it speaks to me. It says I should feed its leaves to the horse. I try and try, but the red horse cannot eat them. Then I look back, and all kinds of horses are running to get them: larger, rugged, sturdy. They love them. Then I take a step back - only one step, but it takes me far, far away - and I see the whole tree, how pretty it is. And I speak words. I don't know why. I have to. I say: "The life that you bring will last forever, as Vhenadahl shelters the People in summer". And that's when I wake up - so sad I want to cry, and so frightened I'm shaking."
Wynne reached out and squeezed her hand. "It's a powerful dream. It speaks of the future - and how it may not be what one expects. You told me Mother Boann and Ser Otto educated you to speak for the Alienage. That dream died. But look at you now: about to save all people, not just one race."
Rilian's face twisted in pain. "You know I'm only here because I murdered the man who raped my cousin."
"You saved her," Wynne murmured.
"No. That's what I told myself. But the truth is: Ser Otto was at my wedding and had already gone for help. He and Mother Boann would have come back with enough fighting men to make Vaughan release us. But I wanted revenge - for Shianni - for Nelaros. Then Duncan had no choice but to conscript me. I killed my own chance to speak for my people."
Quietly, Rylock said: "But the path you are on is where you are meant to be. For the Maker gives better gifts in punishment than men in praise."
"You think so?" Rilian asked bitterly, "Even though slaying the Archdemon will kill me? And - oh! - I don't want to die. I'm afraid to die!"
Rylock and Wynne were silent for a long moment, finally understanding this most important of the Wardens' secrets.
"Oh, I've lived in the shadow of death for a long time: every Alienage Elf does. Starvation, violence, disease - and later, what we faced on the road. But that was risk - I might be killed, or not. Now - certain death. I want so much to live - and it isn't any use - I have to die - and leave everything I care for! Oh - I don't doubt that I'll go to the Maker's side," she whispered, "I'm an Andrastean. And I'm sure the Golden City will be very beautiful. Only - it won't be what I've been used to…"
Hesitantly, like an animal coming out of its shell, not used to speaking her own private thoughts, Rylock said: "I think - perhaps - we have very mistaken ideas about the Golden City: what it is and what it holds for us. I believe we will go on living, much as we do here, and be ourselves just the same - only it will be easier to be good and to…follow the Maker. All the hindrances and perplexities will be taken away, and we shall see clearly. Don't be afraid, Warden."
"I can't help it - even if what you believe is true, it won't be just the same - it can't be! I want to go on living here. I haven't had my life. If…if I could live I would marry Alistair and - have children. Oh, they wouldn't - couldn't - be of my body, but that doesn't matter. Ours by love and nurturing. I always wanted children. Oh, it's hard!"
Wynne pressed her hand in an agony of silent sympathy that helped more than broken, imperfect words could have done.
Rilian laughed, a little self-consciously, "There! It's helped just to say it all out. Sometimes, in the dark, the Archdemon just came and stared me in the face until I got so frightened I could have screamed. But nothing is so terrible in the light. I can face it now. With bitter regret, but calmly."
"Wait a moment, Warden," Rylock said quietly, "I do have something to give you after all." She pulled up the sleeve of her tunic - revealed a thin bracelet made of some strange material. It glowed faintly in the dim light with a phosphorescence Rilian had only ever seen in the Deep Roads. Her mother had once owned a similar bracelet - gifted to her by a man who had been there, she had said. "Boann looked after me for a time, after the Blood Mage attack," Rylock said, "This belonged to her. It's made from rock from the Deep Roads, and was a gift from her mentor. How Mother Ailis came by it I do not know. Its inscription says: "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it". Because the rock absorbs daylight or candlelight - a glow that recedes gradually - it will keep time in the darkness. She gave it to me but - I do not need it now."
"Oh Rylock - I couldn't!"
Did the faint quirk of a smile touch Rylock's lips? "We Templars are not supposed to own material possessions. So - you are keeping me from sin. Here: take it."
In days to come, when Rilian woke from smothering dreams and needed to know what remained of the night's sentence, she would consult the light in her darkness instead of an hourglass.
Ostagar: a mass grave, a decaying monolith shrouded by webs of taint like cobwebs; a waste of dark and silence - a starlit ruin where already the alien and unimaginable was awakening to its new dominion. The deserted fortress looked eerily different: blanched of the noise and colour and life it had held the last time Loghain saw it. The footsteps of his men - Cailan's purple-and-gold tent - shouts and curses and prayers: all ghosts in the valley of the shadow. The pale turrets and archways were empty as gravestones, backed against darkness so smooth it shone like a pane of black glass. Towering above the glistening dark-veined complex, the Tower of Ishal shone like a dagger under a blood-red moon. The ruddy light drenched its ageless patience in a swirl of dusk-red shadow.
Yet the structure was untouched. The stockade he had ordered built - the trenches and abbatis - all stood as he had left them. The towering front gates reared upward, still untouched, their massed railings looking like a rack of spears made for giants to wield. Death had come from within, not without. Loghain would never know whether Ishal had made the difference: whether they could have held the fortress had the darkspawn not come up from beneath. It didn't matter. Whatever the mistakes of Duncan, the Grand Cleric, Eamon and Cailan, he knew the guilt was his. For his inadequate checking of the tunnels beneath the Tower - his blithe disregard for tales of an Archdemon - his fatal misjudgement of Orlais as being the greater threat. Salted fields would have recovered in time - Blighted ones would not. But Loghain did not have time for the luxury of self-recrimination. He lived in the present: and the untouched status of Ostagar's defences was a tool to be used.
Soft footfalls approached: both two and four-legged. The Warden and mabari - coming to take over his watch.
"There's something we need to decide," she said. She looked very young - yet, at the same time, very old. It was a curious thing he'd seen in other recruits forced to become adults before their time: not through the natural cycle of marriage and birth - a cycle as familiar to farmers as to Elves - but through the dark crucible of war. "Who's going to do it if the darkspawn overrun us? You wouldn't enjoy becoming a ghoul - and they'll make no Broodmothers from me."
Grimly, Loghain asked, "Is that even possible - for female Wardens? Wouldn't immunity to the taint prevent it?"
The young face twisted; the Warden gave a sour smile. "Do you know, I have not the slightest intention of finding out. So - short straws?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'll do it - for both of us. At least that way we'll know it'll be done right."
The Warden's face was dark-shadowed. He knew that she, too, was remembering the wounded in the tent. The shadow remained, but was joined by a slightly petulant jutting of her lower lip. "I wouldn't have had any problem slotting you."
"Your candour is - inspiring, Warden."
Her low, dark chuckle floated out of the darkness. Loghain turned to leave - to snatch what remained of the night's sleep - but something made him hesitate. "Oh - one thing: if it's not too much to ask of a commanding officer, keep your moralising to a minimum."
"Moralising? I'd rather have my scars from Ostagar than yours. It's easy to die for your cause - harder to live for it. Bearing the weight of the dead."
Loghain felt his own astonishment crease the seamed lines of his face. He had never expected that much understanding. A moment later his usual scowl reasserted itself.
"The currency of war is life. You pay it and pray the outcome is worthwhile. You have to get close enough to your men to know what you're risking - yet still think of them as tools that might need to be thrown away."
"How do you do both?"
He suspected it was not a general query but a personal one. The Warden must know he was using her too. He thought of their sessions of tactics and strategy, where they would set up the table in Loghain's tent and she would try - and fail - to do better than general Thiebaut Caron had at River Dane. Quills became lines of communication and pine-cones became siege towers…Loghain himself had carved small figures to represent units. He enjoyed teaching her - but he was keeping knowledge of the Wardens' sacrifice from her and would send her to die without hesitation.
"Oh, everyone has a strategy for dealing with it. Most of the generals I've known have turned to drink. Some turn to religion. It's a matter of personal choice I suppose."
"What do you do?"
…the arms of two women, one lean and hard, one soft and feminine, entwined round his as they lay together on waves of grass and darkness…
"Ask me again after this is over." Loghain knew a stab of regret that he could not tell her the truth - that in the arms of a woman, the monster becomes a man. Because, for all her wealth of bitter experience, the Warden was still more child than woman. He had meant his promise to her fierce young Dalish cousin that he might take her life but would never take her honour. But he despised the cowardice of such a dodge - well knowing that there would be no "after" - that she would have to die for it to be "over".
A spasm of pain crossed the Warden's face - morphed a second later into annoyance. "We'll talk in the Fade, then," she said irritably, "No - I'm saying my piece while I can."
Loghain waited, seeing her struggling for words. He read her regrets as though they were his own - seeing the one-day Warden she had been, fresh from the Alienage - imagining her picking up every gold coin within the Tower, taking for granted that she would be in time to light the beacon. He could see it because he had been a poacher once - had trained enough young recruits from poor backgrounds to know that her first thought would have been to support her family. I have far more to regret than you, Warden, he thought silently. His refusal to take warnings of the darkspawn seriously would have sealed their fate even had she been on time. And all because he had been squirming in the net of Flemeth's prophecy. He had been so afraid she might be right about his betrayal of Maric that he wouldn't hear a word said about the Blight - because if that came true then so might the other. And so he had betrayed his friend- had nearly let Maric's kingdom fall to darkspawn. Flemeth had manipulated events to allow her to rescue the two remaining Wardens. And Loghain knew one thing - the purpose of that ancient, knowing, cruel mind - that dragon in human form - was the same as his…the same as all races, all species: to perpetuate her kind. How, he did not know - he only knew he must warn the Warden about Morrigan.
"I just wanted to say I wish…" The Warden stopped, looked beyond the treeline to the battlefield, empty of everything but ghosts. She spread her arms in a curiously helpless gesture - as if finally realizing that there were griefs beyond any imaginable embrace. "Ah, nothing. Wishing just wastes time. Go get some sleep."
The enormity of Ostagar was appalling. Hulking, stone monoliths in an unending variety of greys, blood-washed by a scarlet moon. It looked like an abandoned mausoleum - or a giant chess set from a game between men and gods, demolished in a fit of pique. A chilling twilight world and a landscape of dust. She quailed at the thought of entering that sere valley - yet was strangely drawn by the moribund splendour. A Warden travelling on death's business, carrying her own death inside her.
This place was the beginning and the end.
She had allowed herself to dream of Elven rights, of alliances and power balances. Chasing such golden butterflies had led her away from her true goal.
That goal was the Archdemon. Gently, she reached down to ruffle Ravenous' coat. I'll leave you with Loghain. He and Sten were the only ones who understood you. You'll have each other's backs. I'll tell him when we return to camp…
Ravenous stopped trying to see through the intervening trees: the bare, stark branches. The great head swivelled towards her. He whined. It was a thin, worried sound that grew until it reached a spine-chilling howl. When Rilian dropped to her knees and threw her arm around him he trembled violently, then quieted. His eyes remained fixed on the darkening bulk of the ruins.
Rilian leaned back slowly, braced against a smooth boulder, one arm draped across the mabari's shoulders. The other curled across her knees as she drew herself into a snug, warm ball. Overhead, a breeze poured through skeletal branches, the liquid rush of it soothing.
She stared, unblinking, out into the decaying cityscape, empty of life and light. Gates and turrets and walkways brooded in hulking obsolescence. Glass-hard stars shone down in numinous brilliance, ice-cold in their indifference. They were cut into by the purple-shrouded Tower of Ishal. Like everything else, it seemed covered by a silky spiderweb of taint: inky tendrils that spread like a carpet over squat shadowy monoliths, dark hollows and pools of shadow.
In the foreground was a wild, white cherry tree. Its leafless branches were dead, plucking at the air like bony fingers. I dreamed of a silver tree in a world with two suns: one green and one red. The days were green and the nights red… Rilian was suddenly outraged at this obscene parody of her childhood dream: this swollen moon gorged with the blood of the fallen…the pale stone heaped like an abandoned boneyard… the strange sense of mute vigilance, as though the dead Wardens walked the battlefield.
Why did she feel, like some stir in their air, that sense of ghostly enquiry, furtively touching her nerves? Chilled, Rilian cast her own web of inquiry - listening in, as Riordan had put it. She let a little of her taint come forth - a mere trickle, and spread it as a net, imagining a silvery mesh before her. If any darkspawn were nearby, it should colour that mesh black. She drew the secrets of the darkness to her, as a spider reads the world through the tingling of its web.
She felt the Song grow deeper, heavier, until it almost became visible as a dark, dense cloud. Distant…the horde were still where Riordan had thought them to be, south of Lake Calenhad. But a closer presence stalked her. Instead of a mute awareness, this creature floated towards her upon a shimmering strand of taint. Its eyes pinioned her: cold black stars in its desolation of a face.
Weariness settled on Rilian. Not the sort that usually came at the end of the day - but an odd, compelling need to close her eyes. It was as if the comfort that pulled her deep into her warm cloak now tugged even more urgently, drawing her away from this place.
The darkspawn. It was coming after her - not waiting for her to call to it.
The black curtain of her vision fell. Claimed her. The world spun on its axis. When she opened her eyes, she was in another place - in Ostagar itself, walking among the ruins and the night containing them. As from within, she saw the Tower, and the wooden ramparts surrounding it: all in starlight, a ghost-town image. Then she moved - floated - within, feeling the stillness of murdered men in a cold yellow light.
She was floating in space. Objects drifted past her: wooden supply crates…rows and rows of shelves…the detritus of the ground floor of Ishal. She drew her arms in front of her - and they were skeletal as the branches of the tree, eaten away by the leprosies of taint. She would have screamed - but she was already moving into the darkness beneath the earth. Except it wasn't dark. The world through the creature's eyes was cracked and slanted, but everything was sharply defined, seen in shades of red and black. There was a film in front of her eyes, though, as though the world were covered in grease.
Then, somehow, she was in a tunnel. A cramped, moss-slimed space that pressed close about her gaunt, gracile form, evoking shrill whispers of claustrophobic dread. After an indefinite space of moving through this and other tunnels, and sometimes through passages whose angles hurt her eyes, she was in a subterranean chamber. Great slabs of granite a dozen feet across formed the walls and ceiling, and between the slabs stalagmites pierced the earth. Altar-like, a gigantic stone table waited in the centre. Other figures emerged from the darkened burrows that ringed the chamber: tattered creatures only dimly glimpsed. But the body she inhabited could hear them. The chittering noises of the hive-mind slipped through the darkness, hinting at secrets they wished to share. There were eyes, as well, dozens of them, ruby dots of a cold smoldering. Another sound entered the easy constancy of the other noises. The new one was no louder, but it seemed so because it overrode everything else. High-pitched, its notes exactly two octaves apart, it called.
Something different came to life in the blackness, something that hissed and moved with careful stealth. Its progress was marked by occasional grating. Its dull red eyes darted about constantly, seeking. Clicks and hard, gnashing noises marked invisible activity. The hissing resumed. The thing retreated, cautious as before.
A smell lingered behind it, weight on the air rather than a definable substance. It was a thing that touched deeper than senses.
She reached the altar and Rilian saw with wordless horror that there was a man tied upon it. He was lined with a spiderweb of tubes, and their liquids flowed into him through large, shining needles.
The dark-skinned face was sickeningly familiar.
Stone-faced, he waged a grey, gasping struggle. A pulse chugged in his throat. Occasionally he made a sound. It was a weak, kittenish cry. Only the unmistakable agony of it kept it from being ludicrous.
Dark flesh puckered and gripped as the skeletal hands attached a vial to one of the needles. A trickle of blood filled the glass container. When it was lifted from the point of contact, the man's muscles writhed.
He never changed expression.
The blank face lied. His eyes were glitteringly alive.
They boiled with fear.
The creature floated toward a shelf filled with circular glass dishes. With agonized care, the gracile arms deposited the blood into the nearest. It sputtered and decayed in an instant, like a dying candle, and Rilian felt the creature's hope flare and then crumble into dust and ashes. Despair close on the heels of glittering febrile prayer.
…I hold in my hands bright shards of hope that cut my palms
I open them - only to find I have gathered
Nothing but empty darkness…
The voice was a hollow whisper. Inside the dish was a sickly grey mixture - the fungal growth of rotten hopes - and as the creature bent towards it Rilian caught the reflection in the glass. The figure wore a golden headpiece that seemed part of its very skin - holding the mask of flesh in place, cutting into it like a crown of thorns.
What are you? Rilian cried in the silence of their shared thoughts.
Rilian was taken back to another place, another time. Vast caverns boiling with lava, the crashing wave of countless voices. Beast sounds roared from the cavern: deep, resonant groans - the Song of a creature powerful enough to challenge mountains and rivers.
The ranked multitudes of red eyes swarmed beneath, trembling in unison, pulsing in tempo at the bidding of the Song. They acquired a mathematical precision, each note vibrating at exactly the same rate, creating an arc of sound across the impenetrable blackness.
But suddenly there was another voice - out of time.. Higher-pitched - notes exactly two octaves apart, it made its own song, created a space of silence. Great gaps yawned in the formation. The sympathetic strum burst apart in fragments. Some expired with crisp tingling notes. Others merely stopped. All movement slowed.
Stopped.
A number of the red eyes had disappeared.
The plaintive octave-spanning Song erupted, a series of multi-syllable notes, rising and falling, filling the cavern's silence with a manic choir of asynchronous high-low, high-low wailing.
The creature turned its back on the Song, leading its followers away from the caverns.
The sibilant thing that called them roared with rage, but the sheer weight of activity seemed to daze it. It reeled across the darkness, blazing eyes spearing in all directions. Soon it was standing in one place, hissing balefully, eyes fixed in insensate rage.
The cavern moved in gentle settling. The rock sighed softly.
Those that left the cavern came to a new smell - a smell of heat. And light.
Blinding light.
Silence.
The Song wavered then vanished like a reflection of light on water. In its place, Rilian heard the crying. Voices, uncountable in number, all weeping. Their misery washed over her, threatened to drown her. Then, the words once more:
…This was the life I knew. This is what I am…
Rhythm. Immediately, Rilian knew it was a heart, beating fearfully. She felt its desperation, its race against dissolution: a moth's dust-fragile wings battering stone. It stilled. Then came cold. Something was dead. Yet feared death. In blackness.
The return of the words was a welcome distraction. Rilian wanted to reach for them - until the horror of their message struck at her.
…This is what I have become. One who knows the inner rooms of death, yet cannot grasp what he is. One who knows the fear of too much knowledge, yet driven to know more. To save my species, I have become what no darkspawn should ever be. To save yours, you must become what no Warden should ever be. The decision comes…
The ambush, Rilian thought, We are riding into a trap. But we need to take Ostagar to withstand the horde. And we need the Joining mixture.
She felt her skin tighten, braced mind and body against the ice-chill that clutched her spine. She wanted to flee with her knowledge.
Death walked that place.
Song inspirations were:
The Ruins: Daniel Lanois – Where The Hawkwind Kills
AN: A shout-out must go to Tyanilth. Before I read her wonderful Chapter Six of "The Teyrn's Revenge" I had wondered why Loghain fobbed Rilian off when she asked him how he copes with being a General. Now I know. His words: "In the arms of a woman, the monster becomes a man" are hers.
And to analect, for Richard Rolle's "Fire of Love" - for our shared worldview on what it means to be Elven - and for the awesome pics of Rilian that can be found on DeviantArt. The link is on my profile page.