Death and the Maiden

by Gene Dark

AU story from the Landsmeet to the End Game, including the events of Return to Ostagar, Soldier's Peak and Awakenings. General Loghain and Warden-Commander Tabris campaign against the Blight.

20. Chapter 20: Children Of The Dust

...I could possibly be fading

Or have something more to gain

I could feel myself growing colder

I could feel myself under your fate

It was you, breathless and tall

I could feel my eyes turning into dust

And two strangers turning into dust

And my hand shook with the way I fear...

Mazzy Star: Into Dust

Slate-coloured clouds loomed like solid blocks of intolerable edge and weight.

Late last night, with the red moon turning the encircling trees to blood-etched ebony columns, Rilian had crawled back into bed after being relieved by Wynne. Now, an hour before dawn, she made her way to Wynne's post by the fire. Wynne was alert, and heard her coming at some distance. When Rilian complimented her on it, she held out an exaggerated shaking hand and made a face. They chuckled together, the necessity of keeping quiet forging a strange intimacy. Wynne's usually peaceful face seemed troubled, and when Rilian asked what was wrong she hesitated.

"Foolish thoughts of an old woman," she murmured. "I can't expect you to sympathise. It's trivial compared to what you're facing."

"Don't be silly. What's wrong?"

Wynne poked at the fire and pulled her cloak tighter, gathering herself. "I'm an academic," she said, "I was shut away from the age of nine and didn't see the sky again until I was eighteen. On Templar-supervised trips, you understand. You've succeeded in your life. Failed sometimes. I did neither - not until I was sent to Ostagar." She got to her feet, looked down at Rilian. The firelight deepened the lines around her mouth, hid her eyes in dark sockets. "Yesterday you and Rylock mentioned Mother Boann. What I didn't say is that at Ostagar - tending the wounded - she became the closest friend I ever had. She did a brave thing by ignoring the Grand Cleric's directive and going to help - braver still by remaining behind. I wanted to live up to her but I..." Wynne made a small, sharp gesture, as if to erase the words, "Never mind. But I'm afraid of what we'll find today. Afraid I'll do something stupid or...or cowardly and get one of you hurt."

"We all feel exactly the same."

Wynne shook her head.

"Fake it, then." Wynne frowned, not trusting the remark, and Rilian went on, "Make us believe you're not afraid. Who knows - maybe you'll convince yourself."

"Is that what you do? You don't look scared all the time."

"You mean I only look scared some of the time, right?" Rilian laughed at Wynne's stammering attempt to explain the phrasing, pleased to see her finally surrender to the humour of it and smile. Then she said: "You have magic - and, more importantly, you have brains and compassion. Don't cheat us out of all those gifts by worrying them to death. Trust yourself: you'll be alright."

"Thank you for saying so. You really are a sweet young woman."

Rilian glared mock-ferocity. "I'm the Warden-Commander - the Dragonslayer!"

"You're a velvety, sweet, clawless, adorable little - kitten!"

Rilian giggled. "Hey - I'm moving over to that clearing to polish my blade. Want to come?"

"Would it be alright? Loghain said this was my post."

"Did he nail you to the ground?" Rilian was sharper than she should have been, and smiled sheepish apology.

The night was chilly away from the fire, and they both hunched tighter against the cold. For a while neither spoke. Wynne whispered that the clouds were so close it was like looking at them through the telescope upon the roof of Kinloch Hold. Rilian agreed, enjoying the feeling of shared solitude.

A little later she heard a sound from Wynne, as of something catching in her throat. Suspicious, she bent forward to look into her friend's face. There were wet streaks down the powder-fine cheeks.

"Hey - I thought we had things straightened out?" Then she realised how distraught Wynne was. She decided it wasn't a good time to try being funny.

Suddenly, Wynne blurted, "Ostagar, Rilian! How could Loghain abandon us? Thousands of people - soldiers, servants, mages and clerics! The King..."

"Shhhh," Rilian grabbed her arm and glanced towards Loghain's tent. Wynne settled back, breathing heavily.

"Imagine the darkspawn...the taint... the burning, the torture...the rapes. The Broodmothers. Does he even care?" Her breath was quick, biting lunges.

"Easy, easy. Don't do this to yourself. Of course he cares. You heard him in the tent: they were his men. Don't make this harder than it already is."

Wynne shot her a hard, searching look. Then she managed a smile. It was a weak grimace - but it was there.

It stunned Rilian to realise that she hadn't quite accepted what they would find. All the while she'd told herself she was being forthright about the hammer-blow truths of their situation.

She'd cheated. In her mind had been a hoarded fantasy of somehow rescuing both land and survivors from the ruins. Wynne's forlorn analysis made her face the truth.

She considered telling her of last night's vision. The words stuck to the roof of her mouth. Instead she sympathised in a general manner until Loghain called them to begin the day.

She cornered him. "Listen," she said, tapping the surprised Teyrn's chest, "We've got to get out of here. Ostagar's a loss. What we need to do is contact the Orlesian Wardens: fight side by side. They'll have enough Joining mixture for a whole army. We can break the horde from The Rock at Gherlen's Pass."

Loghain's glower told her exactly what he thought of that idea. "We will break them here - put Ostagar back together."

"What with - string?"

"If I have to."

"Look down into that valley of death. It's tainted. Half of Ferelden's already fallen. Who cares about artificial political boundaries?"

Loghain's answer came with the dark, biting sarcasm she'd grown familiar with. "Look - Wynne wants to improve the minds of the other half. Rylock wants to teach them they've got souls so she can save them. You want to teach the Alienage that they're equal to the Maker Himself, and all they have to do is form a good union to prove it. Me, I want to restore those political boundaries so you can all have your rightful place to do your wonderful things. Do what you want: I'll defend the nation."

Rilian blushed, a little ashamed. Last night's vision of a talking, thinking darkspawn seemed irrational in daylight - a product of her own overwrought imagination - or perhaps some new reverberation of the death at work in her. She nodded slowly.

They spent the next hour preparing to enter the ruins. Loghain held school on weapons and tactics, then directed an inspection. Everyone must have a ranged and melee weapon, properly adjusted armour, and ammunition. Packs were checked: they examined their own gear, and each other's. Then Loghain talked them through tactical and march formations, fire commands, and trail discipline.

It went quickly, frenetically. Time seemed to leap across itself. Breakfast was a nervous meal, bolted down. Conversation came in snatches - almost entirely devoted to reviewing situations of defence, attack, or retreat. There was a last rush of making ready.

"Alright: move out."

Rilian's eyes flew open at Loghain's barked order. For a moment, she couldn't make herself believe the time had slipped up on her. The brief, staccato conversations reminded her of the Alienage after Vaughan's appearance: conversation forced, too casual, and - just before they left - too confident.

Fear coated them like sweat.

---

They entered through the western gate, emerging through a narrow gully into what had been the King's Camp. Horses were tethered by the fringe of firs. Loghain had Rilian take point, relying on her ability to sense darkspawn, while he and Surana guarded the flanks. Rilian's first sight of the camp was almost an anti-climax. The muddy ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, entwined with furry tendrils that might have been rot, might have been taint. But the web of her senses remained clear. The vision: if it had been real, could it have been a memory? The creature's memory of what had happened when they took the Tower six months ago? She sensed no darkspawn now.

Mouldy tents fluttered like dead moths: foul rags that hoarded the stench of decay. Rilian was going to head straight for the Tower - but Loghain put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. He gestured toward the tent that had been Cailan's.

Nervous irritability fairly crackled around Wynne. "You expect anything to remain there?"

"The darkspawn would not have been able to touch the King's blade," Loghain pointed out, "A valuable weapon."

"Much good it did him!"

Rilian moved to stand between them but Loghain ignored her.

"Let me know when you're done glaring at me, madam. My memories of this place are no fonder than your own."

"No? I remember good friends dying in this place. And a man whom I respected as my King."

"All I remember is a fool's death and a hard choice. I'd make the same again."

"Even knowing all that you know now?" Wynne fairly exploded.

"Even so. Come: our bitterness is better spent on the darkspawn than each other."

"Yes indeed. Maker forbid I waste a whole day's bitterness on you!"

The sword did not lie within the sad, mouldering remains of Cailan's tent. Drapes and cushions and fine tunics: the luxuries were faded ghosts now, shrivelled as an aged bride waiting for a wedding that would never come. And Cailan's armour was already buried: after spending six months being worn by the Hurlock General, that had been the only decent disposition. Even Rilian - a gleeful hoarder of stolen armour - had balked at the idea of trying to restore its former glory. The once-gleaming gold had been pitted and corroded, as though the poison in the darkspawn's body had slowly leeched outward.

What did lie within was an iron chest, its lock intricate enough to confound even a darkspawn emissary. Rilian set her jaw - tried to remember the lessons of Leliana and her mother - and drew a set of lockpicks from her pack.

"Is this really necessary?" murmured Wynne, mouth set in disapproval.

Rilian expected Loghain to chastise her - but his long lupine face and ice-blue eyes held an odd, eager light. Wordlessly encouraged, she set to work.

She was grateful Zevran was not there to witness her first embarrassing fumbles. Finally, the lock clicked open - and Rilian reached inside...

"Letters! Three of them..."

With the speed of a striking snake, Loghain deftly plucked them from her hand.

"Hey!"

Loghain broke the seals without ceremony - scanned through the first...the second...the third. The look on his face was dark and bitter as hemlock. Something warned Rilian to say absolutely nothing.

"That cheating bastard!"

Wynne gave a hiss of indignation. "Watch your mouth, Loghain Mac Tir - unless you have forgotten the company you now keep!"

"It is not my company I worry about but my former son-in-law's! Do you not see the familiar tone with which the Empress writes him - as if my daughter were not already his wife?"

"Cailan loved Anora with every ounce of his heart. It was plain for all to see. The only thing that ever stood between them was you."

"Are you blind? The plot is plain as day within these letters! Eamon, acting as Cousland's stalking horse, had brokered a marriage between Cailan and the Empress. Cailan ordered - ordered - Eamon to remain at Redcliffe rather than march to Ostagar! And the bloody, bloody Chantry had orders to remain in Denerim. Why? So he had a ready-made force strong enough to put down all resistance to his schemes. Love or no, Cailan was going to cast my daughter aside and wed himself to that bitch, Celene. In a single vow, Orlais would gain all that they could never win by war! And what would Ferelden gain? Our fool of a King could strut about and call himself an Emperor."

"And what of peace? Would it not have brought that at least?"

"I would have thought age had granted you more wisdom, madam. Peace just means fighting someone else's enemies in someone else's war for someone else's reasons."

Rilian hung back, put a hand on Rylock's shoulder.

"Yes?"

It was impossible to tell what Rylock was thinking: her face was emotionless as marble.

"Rylock: what about the Chantry? What are you going to do if the Grand Cleric gets involved in Orlesian politics?"

"Warden," Rylock sighed and removed Rilian's hand. "I am a knight of the Maker, sworn to fight for Him. How can I become involved in a war that isn't holy? A Templar knight doesn't draw her sword against her fellow man - only against maleficarum and darkspawn. You know this. So what else could I possibly do?"

"Yes, but things are different now. The Grand Cleric doesn't seem to be worrying about the Blight. She's more preoccupied with Orlesian politics."

"Warden," Rylock's voice was stern, "You are wise beyond your years but you are not qualified to speak of our Order. Despite the...regrettable machinations of a few, the Divine is as close to perfection as a human being may come. Nothing has changed about that and nothing will."

Oh Rylock, you're so innocent. Don't you know that everything changes? Except, of course, for the futile squabbling. It seems to me that the squabbling will never end.

Loghain affected great surprise. "So: the Grand Cleric's machinations were - regrettable? You admit it?"

"Indeed," Rylock answered, without missing a beat, "But among the Chantry, she stands out. Among your fellow nobles, who would notice?"

Loghain was surprised into a bark of laughter. "You never quit, do you? Your superiors would be proud to know their indoctrination survived the darkspawn."

"They'd have the skin off my back if they thought it didn't. They'd say if any part of me makes it through this, it had better be the esprit de corps."

Both fell quiet after their exchange, the group backing wordlessly out of the forlorn tent.

Rilian took point once more as they headed towards the north-east, through a stone jungle of looming columns and shadowy statues. Rilian felt as if they had joined this chess game of the gods: they were tiny pieces, being moved against their will towards the long narrow corridor that led to the Tower. A young ghost ran beside her - a one-day Warden on her first mission...

...and so he needs two Wardens to hold the torch?...

...we have our orders; c'mon let's go...

...and what do we do if the Archdemon appears?...

...we soil our drawers, that's what...

...can we join the battle afterward?...

...Maker watch over you, Duncan...

A cracked fissure formed an ugly scar in the rock.

...Rilian felt the air swish past as the projectile narrowly missed her. She gazed down at the valley below: the yawning breach where the darkspawn howled and gibbered and screamed. A statue of Andraste serenely watched the chaos...

The statue was buried under twisting tendrils of unspeakable detritus. The stench hit her like a fist; her throat burned in the acid, nearly palpable fog. Andraste's arms now held a human sacrifice: a scarecrow whose putrid skin sloughed off like a wet, defiled garment. The blue tumescent face seethed with decomposition; the swollen tongue wallowed helplessly between the viscid lips. Turbid fluid splashed down to the ground. Dull, popped eyes glared in an agony of thwarted expression.

It was Cailan: magically preserved in gross decay, dark and bloated as some sleek marine creature, ruddered with the black-veined gas-distended sex.

Rilian sank down to her haunches, weakly drooping, and it seemed as if her thoughts originated with that fainter, more tenuous past self waiting like a ghost.

Wynne reached to support herself - found Rylock's arm - seeing not a Templar but needed help. Rilian was startled by how haggard she appeared.

Loghain ignored the dead - turned to the living - face tight and drawn. He said: "Our first priority is securing the Tower. Then the Joining supplies. Then the disposal of the remains.

"Maker," Wynne shuddered. "Remains. Oh Maker."

"The dear departed, if you prefer," Loghain said sardonically.

Rylock said: "We can't simply walk off and leave him here, General. You're a soldier, and I realize spiritual matters aren't your priority, but we must give him a burial with the proper services."

"I agree."

Allies now, Wynne and Rylock stood side by side like an immovable wall. Loghain growled in exasperation. "Men - to me."

Rilian hesitated just an instant - then followed after Loghain and the Night Eves, casting mage and Templar one last, apologetic glance.

---

The echoes of fading footsteps rang in the stillness, leaving Wynne and Rylock alone with their dead. The stink in the wind cut cold across the stone. Wynne shivered, feeling as if all light and warmth had fled, leaving her standing in an open grave.

Rylock set to work instantly - said: "This is no way to remember him" - steeled herself, and cut him down. Wynne marvelled that she could stand there, amid the crawling, unspeakable detritus, and perform such rites; a moment later, she stepped forward to help.

Sudden dizziness claimed her - she felt curiously unreal, as if she were draining away into the Fade. Her ears rang; her heart hammered. Swirling, burning colours blinded her. She watched them coalesce into surreal imagery.

A steel hand grasped her shoulder, steadied her. Rylock said: "Something's troubling you. It's not just what happened here."

"Nothing's troubling me."

"You're not feeling well. Sister Leliana told me you fought with a rage demon, and something happened to you. She wouldn't tell me more."

Wynne rounded to face Rylock. "If you think I'm an abomination, say so." The querulous tremor of her own voice irritated her; she deliberately pitched it lower.

Rylock said: "We Templars have meditation techniques that free the mind to help the body. I could show you. It would help you with this thing that makes you weak."

Wynne noted the care with which Rylock avoided words like Spirit and the Fade. It was an immense concession, and a tribute to her friendship. She said: "We can talk about that at any time. What's really on my mind is: it should have been Boann's chance to escape Ostagar that day, not mine."

"Why? Because she's dead and you're alive?"

"No. Because when the darkspawn swarmed towards us - butchered the wounded in their beds - she stayed to defend them, and I ran."

Rylock's face hardened. "Then you never did a worse thing in your life."

"And what have you run from, in an unthinking moment?" Wynne snapped.

"I never ran from a foe in my life!"

"No? Is not service an escape from freedom - from the responsibility of thinking for oneself? When you left Kinloch Hold to seek service at Kirkwall - wasn't it because it was easier to hand the responsibility to Knight Commander Meredith than take the risk of being wrong?"

"Better to be unsuited to thinking for oneself and have the humility to recognize it, than to insist on doing so anyway," Rylock returned dryly. "Was that not the mistake of so many at Ostagar's War Council?"

"And were you thinking for yourself or not thinking when you murdered Aneirin?"

Rylock's dark eyes held an abstracted, inward-looking distance. At last, she said quietly, "Knight Commander Greagoir had told me he was no threat. But the Knight Commander had said those words before: about the Blood Mage who murdered Ser Guy - about First Enchanter Remille. So I chose to use my own judgement. When I caught up to the boy, he hit me with a Mind Blast - and I struck without thought. It was murder - and it was wrong. That is why I asked to serve in Kirkwall. At least there I knew the apostates were Blood Mages."

"So you chose to trust Knight Commander Meredith because you could not trust yourself - even though her Order is mired in politics? Only maleficarum and darkspawn, you said. Did you remember that when helping her depose Kirkwall's Viscount?"

Rylock gritted her teeth - and Wynne saw an echo of Ser Cauthrien in that stubborn, haunted look: loyalty warring with conscience. An odd pang went through her. She started to reach for Rylock's hand - stopped in mid-air, not wanting to give the Templar the opportunity to flinch from a mage's touch. She turned it into an awkward pat. For a fleeting instant, the shared memory of that night of grass and darkness leapt between them. Deeply precious; deeply wrong. Never to be regretted - and never to be repeated. Between them it was understood - words would only damage it. Just that small physical contact, that almost furtive touch, and they moved apart.

"Wouldn't it have been better," Wynne asked softly, "To choose to learn from past mistakes - trusting yourself to make the right choice next time?"

"I never thought, before, that I should choose. Or even that I could. Templars must obey without question when fighting mages: there's no time."

"And yet - you are here. Against the Orders of the Grand Cleric. You can still decide who is worthy of trust - and even then decide each time if something is right or wrong."

She was rewarded by one of Rylock's rare smiles - a shaft of light in a dusty room.

It seemed to illuminate Wynne's regrets, her memories of this place: they whirled like dust motes in a sunbeam. "Do you ever think about being forgiven?"

Thoughtfully, Rylock said: "The only ones who have the right to do that are dead. Nor will regrets bring them to life. And seeking forgiveness - or anything at all - from the Maker seems...presumptuous. I just want Him. Only that. It is not His punishment I fear but His withdrawal. We can only face Him with our sins - and try to do better."

Rylock's faith in that beautiful goodness - a relationship as real and visceral as any human lover - seemed to illuminate Wynne's Spirit of Faith as a shadow and a thought. For a moment, she knew an envy that nearly brought her to tears. It was, she mused, ironic punishment for her earlier cruel impulse to shake Rylock's beliefs. Rylock had meant none, but she knew its fitness.

Before she had the chance to speak, Loghain's raw, anguished shout shattered the frozen air. "Templar - Healer - quickly!"

An icy hand squeezed Wynne's heart like a fist. Rylock was already moving. Wynne followed her, at a run.

---

Although Loghain and the Warden knew where the Tower was, it took half-an-hour of worried scouting to assure all was clear. Surana and ten of his men formed a perimeter, perched upon the wooden stockades. The remaining ten accompanied them inside, the Warden leading. Using his dagger, Loghain prised the doors open. When they stepped inside, it was to find themselves sinking into a chill, repellent atmosphere. Loghain struck sparks and flint from a small leather box. Transferring the small glow to rags spread with pitch and tied to a stick created a torch. They advanced slowly. The statues inside leaned drunkenly against the stone walls, from where the emissary's Stonefist had smashed them. Dark, freckled here and there with tendrils of taint, they seemed to be asking to decay in peace.

The long stone antechamber was rank with mould and long inky steaks of tar-like taint. The carved archways above cast shadows that writhed in the torchlight, creating ghostly, unsettling movement. Blank, almost senile-looking windows let in grey light from outside. Motes of dust danced in the heavy, soup-like haze. The large, grey, vacuous chamber beyond echoed its emptiness through fibrous veils of cobwebs and taint.

The Warden found her voice first. It bounced off the circular walls, echoing and re-echoing, filling the space with a hollow timbre. Abashed, she lowered it to a whisper. "It smells dead. I have a bad feeling about this - like it ought to stink worse."

Loghain knew her imagination saw what the torchlight wouldn't reveal: the soldiers who'd died here, coffined within the chamber, entombed forever. Neither of them would speak directly about that. He offered compromise. "We don't have to go all the way in. Our priority is sealing off the...tunnels." He cursed himself for that minute hesitation: the unspoken acknowledgement that only a few yards away in uncaring darkness lay the tunnels that had brought death - where the female survivors would have been dragged down, down...to be dissolved and remade.

At the edge of the torch's ruddy light, the Warden was a dim, bent figure, moving in a crouch. Looting - again? Loghain wondered sourly. Hadn't what happened here cured her of that? "Over here," she beckoned, her fingers moving like erratic, windblown petals.

The side-room was an eerily disorderly jumble. Precise aisles and shelves were a darkspawn-smashed landscape of refuse. Light barely reached the corners of the square stone room. The blackness of the vault overhead was vague, threatening. Wavering shadows suggested spirits that resented trespass.

"I thought - maybe - we could use the supplies," the Warden suggested in a small voice. She picked up a leather surcoat - only to drop it with a wordless cry of revulsion. "Mould. Mildew. Nasty stuff." Her voice thrummed imperfect echo. The offending leather sighed when it landed, collapsing in on itself. Thin, powdery clouds puffed into the stillness.

All cloth was ruined: some already disintegrated. Food supplies were foul with rot. The Warden mourned their loss. "They weren't much, but we could have used them. We wouldn't have had to hunt on the way back to camp." She picked up one of the wooden crates. Noxious glop oozed out. She hurriedly dropped the mess. "Well - they're garbage now."

"Always were, Warden," Loghain grunted, soldier humour leaning towards the dry. "I remember: the smoked boar wasn't bad. First you added some pepper, then..." He stopped. Resumed sharply, "We'll head to the breach."

The air seemed to burn his throat and made breathing painful. He spat continually to get rid of a raging thirst. His eyes burned and watered.

Loghain led the party down damp-caked steps into a tactile darkness that took them into its frigid depths like a well. The decaying ribs of sundered barrels, furred with mould, could still be seen across the taint-slicked flagstones. The Warden bent down to pick up an old bottle. Its contents slid from it like pulp. A curled spider rolled across the floor, spilled from the bottle like a withered grape.

As they continued, the air seemed to congeal around Loghain into diseased vapours, smothering him with the sealed-in stench of decay. Their footsteps echoed as they passed beneath the stone into the lip of one of the tunnels. Thought at first sight it looked like a narrow crevice, further investigation showed an earth-lined burrow large enough for a man. The torchlight illuminated the straggling tendrils of taint hanging like lengths of matted grey hair inside it. Loghain stared at it - not moving, not understanding why.

Run. Get out. Now.

The thought was his own, but it came to him so urgently he turned around as if one of his men had spoken.

Quietly, wonderingly, Loghain asked himself: Run from what? If any darkspawn remain the Warden would have sensed them.

His legs suddenly buckled beneath him and he leaned forward, hands clasping his knees, gagging with the struggle not to vomit in front of his men. The ground writhed beneath him. With great effort, he straightened up. The Warden helped him, hands around his back. Ignoring all those tiresome customs between noble and commoner, Elf and human, she patted him roundly.

"Atta boy, Loghain - nice and slowly - got any legs yet?"

Loghain scowled and pulled away, irritated with himself for the show of weakness. Dammit - he couldn't afford to get sick - not now! Not while he had a country to defend...

"You can't be tainted - you haven't had any contact with darkspawn," the Warden reassured him - a little too brightly. Loghain determinedly refused to think of Rowan: dead after a long mysterious illness contracted sometime after leaving the Deep Roads.

"It would be poetic justice, I suppose," he said drily: thinking of his fatal mismanagement of the Blight that had caused most of the southern Bannorn to be destroyed. His assessment of Orlais as being the greater threat was so badly off the mark he was appalled. Chevaliers could be driven out again; darkspawn brought annihilation. He had no excuse: Maric had told him of the witch's warning twenty years ago and he had dismissed it. And his actions at the border had achieved nothing beyond ensuring the chevaliers had the perfect excuse to invade, at a time when the Civil War and Blight rendered them unable to defend themselves. Lives had been in his hands and he had failed; there was no excuse for that.

He could tell from the pale, pinched look on the Warden's face that she was coming perilously close to agreeing with him; he saw, in her eyes, memories of kin dead from the Tevinter plague; the faintest trace of vindictive pleasure sticking to her like spikes on cactus, the accusations she hadn't voiced still hovering around her like a swarm of hornets. But she caught herself, the mobile, expressive features turned soft, almost ashamed - which was kinder to him than he deserved. A moment later the white lips hard-shut with sympathy spread into her trademark, snake-eating grin:

"Bah - you're too nasty to come down with darkspawn plague: the taint would drown in the bile!"

"Hey, now," Loghain complained without heat.

"There is no "hey now". Come on; we have work."

Nevertheless, his re-entry into the tunnel was difficult, each step requiring a new summoning of the will to move. In the freezing half-light all movement felt like defiance. His body lagged behind his craving to be quick - to be done with this molestation of the dead and to seal the tunnels.

The Warden insisted on taking the lead - and as she was the only one who could sense the creatures, Loghain agreed. She moved off, stealthy and quick. Suddenly, she stopped. Her head went up, alert, then she turned to him. Loghain's surprise was blunted by a sudden incongruous awareness of her. Curiously tilted eyes swept around; bright, lively. High cheekbones accentuated the full mouth, now down-curved with stern intent. Her hair was a scarlet frame for delicate, expressive features. Grace surmounted the blunt, ugly crossbow in her hands. She reached down - patted her mabari's head - and continued to seek, turning. Ravenous was alert, disturbed.

"Darkspawn?" Loghain mouthed silently.

The Warden shook her head. "I sense nothing. But I hear music."

Loghain heard nothing. Hair prickled on the back of his neck.

"I'm just going to..."

"Wait!"

The Warden ignored him, moving forward with a speed the larger man could not match. Loghain cursed savagely.

Stone and lumps of dislodged earth suddenly scattered like mice at their feet. And with them, like the gases of decay a noxious stench far worse than any they had encountered emerged to blanch Loghain's face in an instant. Barely able to restrain his nausea, he forced himself forward. The air rapidly became discoloured, while the torch guttered out, leaving them in total darkness. He grabbed for the Warden's arm.

"Get out! Now!"

The Warden gave a cry of terror that turned his bowels to water. Her arm was wrenched from his by something he couldn't see. He lunged for her - missed...

Then choking dust and earth erupted all around him as the tunnel collapsed ahead. He crashed futilely against a solid wall, shouting for the Warden. Then he stopped, turned, and backed away into impenetrable darkness, calling:

"Templar - Healer - quickly!"

---

Rilian knew she was alive.

The scant air she was able to draw into her lungs was thick with taint. Every breath scoured her. Rough stone pressed into her spine: her limbs seemed frozen in place. She struggled frantically, but couldn't move anything more than her fingers. Pain like a caress of flame burned her muscles; terror made her gag on each shallow breath.

Something like this had happened to her before. Arl Howe had tied her to a stone slab, limbs spread-eagled on top of it. A black hood had choked her, and the darkness had been absolute on all sides, and she had understood that sensations of fear and asphyxiation meant nothing - that no-one could hear her - that his assault made her a ghost. A nothingness freely possessed by a monster. She had felt her own spirit leeching out into the surrounding blackness.

It came to her without drama, almost without surprise, that she could do the same here. She could let go of herself and allow the darkness to bear her away. That instant, eternal plummet and soar into the vast, redemptive, ruinous dark the Archdemon had taught her to know and fear and love. Then, whatever happened to her, she would be safe because she would be gone.

As soon as the idea occurred to her, she knew it would be easy. As easy as her mother's surrender to despair, after the guards took her beauty. But even as the thought came to her she heard a series of clicking, chittering, splashing noises. And the sound of dry, ragged breathing beside her: impossibly weak, crushed, but there. A black tendril flickered - tickling against her mind. Something - someone - reaching out to her. Not a darkspawn - a Warden.

Because of that, she couldn't fail, couldn't let go.

She struggled to turn her head, and the movement dislodged a small fragment of stone. There was a series of loud, hollow reverberations as it fell...down...down...until at last there was a sullen plunge into water. Maker. I'm above a chasm. At the same moment, there came a sound nearby: the scrape and grate of a stone slab being pushed aside. A faint gleam of light flashed suddenly through the gloom. She couldn't see the figure who carried the torch: it was skeletal, floating. Instead she turned in the direction of the mind-touch - and saw a filthy, haggard shape strapped onto a slab beside her. From its wet, twisting mouth came a whistling groan - the decayed fragment of a human voice:

"By whatever means necessary..."

The spoiled vocal instrument made a mangled gasp of the last word - an inhuman snake-pit noise that Rilian felt as a cold flicker of ophidian tongues within her ears. Rilian looked effortlessly past the corrupted face and wide, milky eyes to the real eyes: those of the encoffined man. Tormented eyes foreseeing madness - and craving it. His real self was just the flicker of moonlight already half-drowned in the encroaching night.

"I will, sir," she whispered.

She tore her eyes away: looked down...down towards the source of the unspeakable sloshing noises below: the unimaginable sound of ripe pods bursting wetly open. The creature down there, its many tentacles writhing in anguish, encapsulated all the horror of Rilian's approaching fate. Terror and outrage wrenched her spirit in brutal alteration as if trying to tear it naked from its captive frame. She rolled her head in this deadlock, mouth beginning to split in the slow birth of a mind-emptying howl.

The gliding figure watched this, giving a single nod that might have been approbation. The creature she had communicated with last night sought her eyes. Its own were milky white - the grey skin of its face stretched so tautly over sharp bones it seemed about to split open. The face was more humanlike than that of any darkspawn she had seen: most darkspawn noses were rotten stumps, lips eaten away to reveal rows of sharp teeth. This had a human nose, human lips - a graft held in place by a glittering golden mesh - a crown that swept upward like the thorns of a dead tree. The living flesh was slowly being eaten away by the leprosies of taint, already rotting around the edges where the Blight disease was eating into the new, younger skin. It was death, peering through a stolen mask of life. In her stomach was an ant-like crawliness. She remembered a hot, bitter summer's day of her childhood, and the maggots she had found, with horror, in the belly of a dead cat.

The thing reached out with slender arms that tapered to long elegant fingers: pale, attenuated like the branches of a dying tree. The arms are those of a woman. And does she now wear the old, decaying stumps? The alien hands, with the light, solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, rested on her naked thigh.

The absence of sensation made the touch more dreadful than if felt. It showed her that the tubes within her captive flesh had already pumped their poison into her veins. The nightmare she still desperately denied at heart had annexed her body while she - holding head and arms free - had already more than half-drowned in its paralysis. There, from her chest on down, lay her nightmare part: a nothingness freely possessed by an unspeakability.

Memories of Howe broke through carefully constructed defences. It was as if she had been asleep to the reality that it must all happen again. It was as if that night were all nights. As if everyone - Loghain, Wynne, Rylock - had conspired to lull her into an insane sense of safety.

It was a terrible awakening. Nothing made sense except the certainty of what would come. Her blindness up to this point was a kind of meta-horror, as if she were only this moment waking to the truth. She bit down on her own tongue to muffle the sounds of her distress. The creature was so close. So close.

She could hardly draw breath. The choking air was thick with taint - the air of nightmare that was in league with him. And this was worse than Howe. The end result echoed the feculent splashing and hissing she heard below.

Maker. Help me. Anything but that. Anything at all. Just not that filth...PLEASE!

The creature stopped, cocked its head as if trying to make sense of her.

"I am called the Architect. I apologize for restraining you," it said - the rotten tongue making the words slushy and indistinct. Nonetheless, the tone was urbane, soft and oddly resonant - the dry, gentle voice of a scholar. The incongruity almost sent hysterical peals of laughter clawing from Rilian's throat; she choked them back.

"Restraining me? You experimented on them all - all the survivors - including the Warden Commander. What is your purpose? What are you?" Panic erupted in the question that she tried to bury by answering herself instantly: "Resolute, yes. That, surely. A darkspawn that doesn't hear the Song - that thinks and plans. How did you prevent me sensing you?"

The darkspawn held up a curious black brooch. Its inky, oily darkness seemed oddly akin to the glistening smears of taint that wound around the chamber.

"I gave these to a member of your Order, twenty years ago," it explained, "The magic prevents us from sensing you - or the other way round."

The voice's sinister colouration of pitch and stress grew yet more marked - the phrases slid from the tongue with a cobra's seeking sway, winding their liquid rhythms around Rilian until a gap in her resistance should let them pour through to slaughter the little courage left in her. To ease the nightmare's suffocating pressure - to thrust out some flicker of her own will against its engulfment - she asked:

"Who did you give this to?"

"A woman named Warden Commander Genevieve and her brother. They were to be the architects of my peace - a peace between your kind and ours. We planned to destroy the remaining Old Gods before they could rise as Archdemons, thus freeing my kind from their compulsion. Alas, we were betrayed. By a mage we trusted: the Orlesian First Enchanter. Your King Maric and his General stopped them."

The first Warden Maric brought to Ferelden was a woman - best warrior I've ever seen.

Loghain had encountered this creature before! Wardens conspiring with darkspawn - and an Orlesian plot at the heart of it! No wonder he didn't trust us...

"Once the Old Gods were dead, how would you have achieved this peace? Could you stop infecting our kind? Could you stop spreading disease?"

"Yes. The First Enchanter promised a magical plague that would transform all your kind to Wardens. Once your species became immune, there would be no need for violence."

The dead eyes sought the living and found Rilian staring back, grinning insanely. "That was your plan? It didn't occur to you that with every woman sterile, and immune to your corruption, both our species would face extinction?"

"That was the flaw, yes. But no longer. That is why I have transformed the beings you see before you. Once he was First among your kind - now he will be First among mine. Once she was Mother to your city. Now she will be Mother to a race. She still remembers who she was. She remembers you."

As the words wormed beneath her skin a low moan escaped her - as unstoppable by courage or act of will as her inability to move her dead limbs. One breath away from drowning in grief.

"Your own species will have to do the same of course. Keep a selection of breeding females within spheres of protective magics, safe from the taint."

"Clever corpse!" Rilian cried, "Clever carnivorous corpse! Please don't think I'm criticising. Who am I to criticise? But I'm confused." She paused, savouring the monster's attentive silence and her own buoyancy in the hysterical levity that had unexpectedly liberated her. "How could there be peace, even so. You will still need our females to reproduce."

Her gibe was answered to her own terror. The creature shook its head slowly. "No. That is why I called her The Mother to a race. Her Children - a new form of our kind - are the larval form of their parent. Proto-Broodmothers, if you will."

Rilian's terror became unbearable. Time seemed to be pouring out like the sands of an hourglass, while she by monstrous winds was being swept towards some black precipice. She knew what was waiting there, and, shuddering, crushed with her own hands her burning lids, as though she could rob her very brain of sight, and drive her eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. Her mind had its own food which it devoured and her imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted by pain, danced like some foul puppet and grinned through living masks. Then, suddenly, the hourglass turned. Time ran out no more, and horrible images raced on in front, dragged a hideous future from its womb, and showed it to her. She stared at it. Its very horror made her stone.

"Your kind will overwhelm mine," she said - her voice stricken, sick.

"And what is "mine"?" the creature asked, "Your kind are already being overwhelmed by the humans. That is the nature of evolution. Elves will be replaced by humans - mundanes with mages. Why is it so much worse to think of them being replaced by my kind instead?"

"Because you are not a species," Rilian whispered. "Because you are born sick - dying creatures with only a brief butterfly moment of existence. How many years do you have? How long could you have lived if you did not steal life from your subjects? A year? Three? Your kind struggles to free the Old Gods because their Song is the only light you can know. Once free, will you create your own songs? Will you create anything? Love? Will some part of you live on after death?"

"Will you?" the creature asked with remote sad humour. "All lives are chance-formed biological engines, vastly isolated in time and space. Then entropy...atrophy...death."

"But there is something more - something else..." Rilian began. It took great effort to say this. The dying creature exerted a kind of gravity, causing her mind to fall into its mode of thought. The old, eroded face was a desert her question got lost in; the words came out of her mouth stillborn.

"Motes in space," the creature sighed, "Wound up by accident...decaying by necessity. Do you know how my kind were conceived? A plot by long-ago soldiers from the Anderfels who struggled to find a way to resist the Tevinter Blood Magic. They found a creature who had once been a man - a magister named Corypheus - tainted and infected by the demons of the Black City. They spread his infection - created the first Broodmothers - trying to fight back against the Empire. And they nearly succeeded. Without them, your prophet would never have been able to bring them to their knees. You see: we were born from men. Do we not have the rights of men - the right to make the best we can of the scrap of life given us?"

"The best you can would be to help me," Rilian whispered. "Help me find a cure for the taint - a cure for your kind and mine."

"It is not possible. Perhaps for your kind - but not for mine. Too much of our very essence is wound through by taint. Destroy that and we are destroyed. All I can do is work to extend our life spans - survive and adapt. If our kind overwhelm yours than that is the way."

The words were dry - all strictest scholarship - but Rilian sensed something else beneath. The seeds of a long-germinal, blazing, jealous hatred for the humanity who had created and sentenced him only to die - nothing but a lump of worm meat, toiling futility in the womb of the earth. The creature spoke of "evolution" and "adaptation" - Rilian felt the truth of this grandiloquence. A barren supremacy of power over lives vastly wealthier in the vividness and passionate concern with which life for them was imbued.

"Warden - I so much want your understanding. I want your help."

"We are not animals: we choose what we bring into the world - and I will bring forth no monsters. We Elves may be a dying breed - it may be true that humankind will reap the whirlwind, the future dreams and life on Thedas. Should I care that my descendants will have rounded ears and heavy bones? No more than Loghain should care whether his great-grandchildren speak Orlesian. The best part of us: the stories, the honest purpose, the honour, goes on. That kind of change is natural. To encoffin women in their own bodies, mute and limbless," and as her eyes sought the milky orbs her gaze held mortal challenge, "to unleash a plague that renders half a species sterile - is evil beyond mercy. And I will stop you - by whatever means necessary."

"And what would I have to do to make you trust me? Kill the Mother - kill every one of my kind?"

Rilian's voice held a freighted, deadly calm as she echoed Rylock's words: "Even that would not be enough. The darkspawn I trust is the one who kills himself."

She stopped, exhausted - but then, as in last night's dream, unbidden and uncalled words compelled her to speak them. Her voice took on a heavy, forbidding timbre. "Poor, poor creature. To wait so long, only to poison the field again, before the seeding. You cannot make good fruit from a bad tree. You cannot create life from death. The false Messiah will learn the truth. You will know sorrow and punishment."

The Architect seemed to sag, as though the weight of unacknowledged despair were crushing him. In response, he suddenly rushed at Rilian, white eyes pools of hatred in the hollowed gauntness of his stolen face. It was the hatred of the dying for the living. His taint-eaten features loomed over and over as if in repeated lightning flashes as he attached needle and tubes to her flesh; the eyes and mouth concentrating; the taut flesh of the forehead stretched in gentle surprise at the first splash of blood on his robes.

There aren't opposing philosophies. There aren't ideas. There's just whether you keep or lose your blood…

Maker, Maker, Maker please - her own voice strangled in her throat, a tube rationing air to her windpipe. Her rage rage rage at the paralysis constraining her body like a block of ice. All the muscles of her face straining to keep her eyes closed so she wouldn't see what she couldn't help but hear.

And still the face flashed in her mind. A metamorphosis. No words now - just the rattle of his dry breathing - the grave-stench of his breath - her intuiting that this took him to a place beyond words, that words would have hindered him. This was elemental, instinctual - this was survival. Nature red in tooth and claw. His silence measured the infinite distance between them, further away from contact with anything human. Her terrible realization that none of her resources would work on him: because even a monster like Howe had been human - but this creature was not.

The descent into the place beneath words transformed the falsely human features into something else. The unpent rage poured through the milky stare in a brilliant coruscation - devouring jewel eyes disinterested as glass. Rilian marvelled at the radiance - the creature seemed gilded with immortality in that moment, like a hunting cat passing its life half out of time.

Then all of a sudden came a tapping - tapping at the rock...

---

Rylock and Wynne joined Loghain and the Night Elves by the wall of rubble. A low moan passed through Wynne's tight-pressed lips when she saw it. As if in response, the Warden's mabari raised his head, mourning in a series of high, wild howls.

"A person will suffocate in there."

"Not one with a Warden's strength and a temper like a wildcat," Loghain answered with gruff assurance. "You," he snapped at Alim Surana, "We'll need timber to shore up as we clear the rock - get it. Murl and Clayden: search the ruins for hammers and pickaxes. Four of us working at the rock at the same time: Rylock, Pir, Tia, you're with me. Wynne - keep us going with healing."

"Do you want any blackpowder?" asked Surana.

"And bring the tunnel down on our heads? Use your brains, man."

Within an hour they had cleared fifteen feet of tunnel, breaking the larger slabs of stone with hammers and prising the pieces out of the jam. Rylock's muscles ached and her hands were raw. She kept going. She saw Loghain inspect one of his thumbs. The nail was torn loose, standing up like a tombstone; he took it between his teeth, pulled it off and spat it onto the ground.

At last the pitch black hole loomed before them. Clicks and hisses of alien creatures and whirring machinery filled the darkness. The smell of taint was overpowering. Then another smell drifted towards Rylock - more immediate. The blue-crackling smell of lyrium, like bottled lighting. Wynne was holding the flask to her lips. The mage paused - turned - and offered it to her:

"I sense an emissary's magic - don't you? We'll need this."

"I am meant to only take it once a day - and the lyrium I take is consecrated. No longer the same liquid you mages take but the Waters Of The Fade. It is the Maker's living spirit, within us."

"It's not the merit of the Chantry that consecrates the lyrium - it's the Maker himself. So why should He not consecrate waters held in your hands? We are doing His work."

Why was the mage asking this of her? Rylock was too exhausted to think clearly. She smelled the purity of the waters - a cold balm, a whisper of holiness - and, overlaying that, the hissing and soft snarls beyond the hole: a gnawing remorseless sound that somehow fed the obscure anguish that the other soothed. Her stomach rasped with steady oscillations of pain. The wingbeat of strange shadows seemed to close in about her head.

Her gaze sought the torchlight. Wherever the light be set, demons shall flee in fear... The light swelled around Wynne until she floated on a carpet of yellow flame. If Wynne was right about the origins of Templars then the lyrium Rylock took was no different to that which Wynne carried. And if the Maker was in her than He was in Wynne too, and all the rest was nonsense. She took the flask - held it in both hands. They trembled - but her voice rang out strong and sure:

"Domine non sum dignus. This is Thy light, taken into me. This is my body - given up for Thee."

But instead of drinking it herself she passed it to Wynne first. The hands of a mage lifted the flask of Holy Water. Rylock half-expected it to shatter in her hand. She took a long sip - then handed it back. Rylock drank - and felt the mortal form of the Maker's light sear through flesh and bone in a cleansing wave.

Wynne raised her eyebrows in unspoken question.

"If the Maker is in me then He is in you, too, against these creatures of darkness."

"Meaning: mages are awful - but darkspawn are worse?" Wynne asked sarcastically.

"Essentially," Rylock answered mildly - the very blandness of her response calculated to cause maximum irritation.

"Oh you!" Wynne gritted her teeth and - with no small amount of satisfaction - began to gather her mana field. The waves of her healing energy washed over Rylock - the very warmth and caring delivered with defiant pride: take that!

Then the rustling, hissing creatures poured out of the darkness - clawing, slashing, howling. Rylock and Loghain fought side by side, swords dancing in tandem. The mabari was a series of black, leaping flames - here, there - savaging attackers. Behind them, she was aware of Wynne's magic washing over them in gentle waves.

The battle was a howling chaos. Somehow, they pushed forward into the yawning breach, driving the creatures back. They emerged into a vast chamber that glittered with chilling apparatus. Pools of light and shadow melted and writhed over the Warden's supine form. A thin, skeletal creature was working over her. More darkspawn poured from side-tunnels, converging like congealing blood. They roared - and the stone chamber repeated the sounds over and over. It was like existing inside a deafening drum. Beside her, Pir Surana fought his way to Rilian - raised his bow. An arrow sped towards the robed creature: shattered before it hit. Rylock ran to him - gathered her Templar powers. Her Holy Smite blossomed outward - wreathed the creature in an azure glow. But a writhing blackness had already budded from the darkspawn's staff.

Surana clutched at the pool of shadow that spread across his torso. It appeared to be eating him. Rylock watched in dull horror as his screams turned to shrieks. He spasmed wildly as the darkness flowed over him...legs, arms, head. The screams ended in a terrible liquid gurgle. The creature didn't try to block Rylock's power - it simply waved its hand, and more creatures rushed her. She fought for her life. Dimly, she was aware of Alim reaching what remained of his father - his grief-stricken howl - then his movements as he worked to pull Rilian free of the tubes. She and Wynne reached them and half-dragged, half-carried Rilian towards the breach. The Warden's legs dragged across the ground as if dead - her naked form was covered in puncture-marks, caked with the filth of taint. She did not seem to be aware of them. Slowly, slowly, the party was forced to back away, drawing closer to each other, fighting back to back in a frenzy of desperation.

An arrow whistled from the swarm, flew past Rylock's ear. The sound was still in the air when the emissary's dry, hissing whisper ordered: "Take the females alive!"

Wynne's face was ashen; a picture of dread. Rylock moved to her side - supported her - turned the edge of her sword of mercy to Wynne's throat. "You - Rilian - then me," she whispered.

She knew Wynne's quiet smile reflected the irony that a Templar would - after all - be responsible for her death.

Loghain yelled to make himself heard. "Here!" he shouted, tossing Rylock one of a pair of swirling globes that held Dworkin's latest, most unstable formula. "When I tell you, smash that on the ground. Don't fail. I'll see you both in the Fade."

Loghain's calm assurance impressed Rylock. She took the grenade in her left fist. The right moved her blade away from Wynne - ready to face the darkspawn. Bunched muscles steadied down in an attitude of quiet control.

Like surf, the darkspawn poured around their quarry. They darted and dodged, forbidden to kill. Loghain and Rylock, unconstrained, did terrible damage. The Teyrn's sword reaped a fearsome harvest. The emissary seemed to understand the sight of the globes: at some unseen signal, the creatures withdrew - following their master back into the chamber. The darkspawn melted away like spilled ink; the suffocating pressure eased. Rylock found herself and the others on the safe side of the breach.

She ran to Wynne and the Warden. Rilian did not rise. She sat with knees drawn up and arms around her naked legs. Wynne unfastened her cloak and draped it about her. Ravenous nuzzled her, panting, licking her face. When she didn't respond, he gave a thin, worried whine.

Rilian looked at them strainingly, with sunken eyes, as if finding it urgent to remember who they were.

Loghain caught up to them. One sweep of his hawk-blue eyes took in her nakedness, her frozen expression. "Did they…" His own face seemed to freeze, and Rylock knew what he would not ask.

Rilian rubbed the back of a filth-encrusted hand across her brow, and blinked. "Did they rape me?" She gave the dry rictus of a smile. "Oh no - the Architect didn't touch me. Not that way. Wardens are sterile - as incapable of bearing spawn as any other children. He wanted my blood. We take theirs to develop immunity to taint. What they take is our resistance to the Song. He wants to make a new world. He dissolved a good woman - made her a monster. The Mother to Children who will never sleep, never dream, never love. I couldn't see her - I could only hear."

"Look. Look here. Drink this." Wynne held out a healing potion. The wash of her azure light bathed the Warden in an eerie glow. After the first swallow, Rilian took the flask from Wynne and emptied it thirstily.

"That's better. Can you stand? We have to leave this awful place."

"I've seen it before," Rilian said suddenly, "Laryn. I looked into her eyes before I killed her."

"Yes. I know."

"A Warden must be able to look on anything. I stared down at Vaughan after what I did to him: blinded, unmanned, stinking of blood and vomit and voided bowels."

"Never mind that now - we have to go."

"He was birthed from the darkness - walking softly - wearing a crown of thorns. Wearing a mask of life."

"Rilian, are you listening? Can you hear what I say?"

"Be quiet. I hear the Song."

To her own horror, Rylock understood what she meant. That fierce, heavy drumming, like a heartbeat…the sense of something scratching, scratching at her mind. She wanted to sink into a bath of Holy Water, wash the echoes from mouth and ears and brain.

Rilian sat with hands on knees, eyes upturned, head tilted up and a little leftward. Rylock could see whites below the iris. Rilian must be found, wherever she was. She ought not to be left alone - not even for a moment.

Gently, she said: "Warden: think of Andraste in the fire - a human body reduced, inch by inch, to ashes and dust. But now she is with the Maker. As are the dead of Ostagar. Do not follow them into the Dark - for they are in the Light."

Quietly, insistently, Wynne said: "You're safe now. I'm here. I promised you I'd be here till the end. I love you. You are the daughter I never had. Look, it's finished, it's over now."

She put out her hand. Rilian's came out and touched it, then closed on it crushingly, so that Rylock heard Wynne catch her breath in mingled relief and pain. "You're with me now," Wynne repeated, "I'd die for you. You're my daughter."

After a moment, the vise-like grip relaxed a little - Rilian's face lost its mask-like stiffness, and looked only rather ill. She gazed vaguely at their joined hands. Her other arm wound around Ravenous' neck and shoulder. She blinked as he nuzzled her and licked her face; came back to herself. Slowly, tottering a little, she rose to her feet.

"Mother," she whispered, "He called his breeder: "The Mother".

"Broodmother," Loghain said succinctly, but the Warden shook her head. "He said she remembered who she was. Nameless now: only her title remains." Her voice broke on the last word. She wept against a slab of rock, clawed fingers digging into the rubble: a mourner sprawled across the gravestone of a lost loved one.

Wynne and Loghain were suddenly white-faced in a terrible realization Rylock did not quite understand. She had an intimation of a truth more appalling than Blood Magic; more than she had ever wanted to know. She wanted to join the Warden. To rest. Her stomach rolled menacingly.

"Move out," Loghain told Rilian roughly. "We have work. Then you can cry." Wynne hissed a protest - but Rylock understood they must seal the tunnels at once. Instead of the poisonous anger Rylock anticipated, Rilian merely pulled away. Unsteady but determined, she put one dogged foot ahead of the other. Wynne led the Warden away, both supporting each other.

"Get to the open." The Warden nodded, expressionless. Rylock stepped forward, offering Loghain her aid.

"We need to use Dworkin's grenades to collapse every side tunnel," Loghain ordered, "And then a larger slab of rock to seal the breach. It won't hold them back indefinitely - but long enough for the army to get here." Rylock nodded curtly, and joined the sixteen surviving Night Elves. The air seemed even worse than before. It was like inhaling mud. Simultaneously, she noticed how raggedly Loghain breathed - as if gasping for air. He saw her look and grunted. "It can't be the dust. I think we're just out of shape."

In spite of herself, Rylock snapped response. "I must be in really bad condition, then, because my eyes hurt too."

"Don't yell at me."

Rylock knew she should break off the staring match - knew her infantile petulance was wrong. Dangerous. Embarrassment flooded over her. Perversely, she remained silent.

It was very confusing. Even her coordination seemed to work against her. Clumsiness was a function of the poor light conditions, she decided. Loghain had them pick up the stone they had dislodged, and pile it to block the tunnels. Rylock dumped hers with a careless thud. Loghain barked at her.

Rylock glared at him. Her concentration failed quickly. Her angry gaze wandered off.

The remainder of the task passed in similar fashion, but the biting exchanges grew fewer. Two hours later, Rylock wiped a film of greasy, unpleasant sweat from her forehead as she deposited the last load of rock. Simultaneously, she noticed how heavily Loghain perspired. They were ridiculously tired. Rylock had once fought Blood Mages for five hours without stopping: Loghain, she was sure, had kept going longer than that during the rebellion. Collecting the rest of the grenades from their camp should have been nothing. Instead, it was demanding.

Outside, the dense iron-grey clouds made the day heavy and dull. Nonetheless, it was so much more welcoming than the Tower that something like euphoria lifted her. Then, crushingly, depression weighed in, making her yearn to abandon the entire project and bathe in the nearby stream. It took a strong exercise of will to continue.

The Night Elves worked hard. Loghain berated them anyhow. Rylock couldn't remember the Warden's mabari looking so nervous. Hangdog, she thought - he looks hangdog. She shouted at the dog to get away. The effort made her cough. That, in turn, made her even angrier.

Arranging the explosives to collapse each tunnel dragged. Readying the grenades became a comedy of errors, albeit one that garnered no laughter. Loghain admitted his schooling in their use was rudimentary. Rylock's was non-existent. Bickering constantly, fumbling sensitive explosives with the intense ineptitude of drunks, they finally determined the burning times of the wicks and actually managed to light them without blowing themselves up. By now, both ran rivers of sweat. Rylock found herself rubbing burning, watering eyes constantly. A grenade slipped from her sweat-soaked grip. She dived for it, startled by her own uncoordinated floundering. Loghain's best drill-field expletives soared.

They ignited the last of Dworkin's blackpowder with a torch. The sizzling flame seared down the length of the long wax-coated wick. The mabari loped into view. Loghain directed him to shelter and made him lie down. The Teyrn hung his head - for once looking more like a young boy than a gruff soldier. Rylock could tell he was ashamed of careless neglect that could have killed the dog.

The ground beneath the Tower heaved. A fierce storm of dirt and dust shot from the breach, followed very quickly by a hard, brittle crack. Then a deep, resonant rumble. A billowing, tumbling wall of dirty grey smoke and debris rolled out.

"Ashes to ashes," Rylock murmured, staring at the destruction, thinking of the Maker punishing the corrupt land of Tevinter. She couldn't hear the Song any more - but the strange pounding drumbeat continued in her blood. The ground was tilting under her. Her face was burning, but she was freezing cold. The world wavered and trembled in her vision. A greasy red-black film dropped in front of her eyes. Rylock thought of black ink, how it spread and spread, wringing colour from above and below, altering everything it touched.

She looked at Loghain's tired eyes and the jutting jaw that was meant to be fierce. To be left alive after his army was destroyed. The worst of all. To go on living. Any trace of animosity over Loghain's alliance with Uldred didn't seem to matter now. They'd both failed here. There also wasn't anything to say. Rylock certainly wouldn't have accepted comfort if she'd been forced to live beyond the lives of her men, so there wasn't any point foisting comfort on Loghain. Where Ostagar was concerned, neither one of them would ever feel any better than this.

"Come on," Loghain said harshly, "We need to seal the entrance with something large - that statue will do."

Rylock's hands, along with Loghain's and the Elves', carried the enormous statue to the breach.

Andraste with blazing sword, standing guard over the Void forevermore…

She couldn't remember ever working so hard - not even during Templar training when they buried one recruit in every twenty over so-called "training accidents". Her joints ached; her muscles felt like molasses. Sealing the tunnels had been challenge. Hiding the breach was devastating. Twice, both she and Loghain had to stop and seek privacy, where they were violently sick. Speculation over what could be the cause was listless, as though they spoke of strangers.

They moved the statue into place. Blood and sweat from barked knuckles, torn palms and stressed bodies stained it. At last, it balanced delicately, ready to be moved into place. Loghain said: "Hold the position right there. I'm changing my grip. I'll push it when you're clear."

Rylock nodded. She swayed on her feet. "Another step," Loghain said. He edged the statue forward. The weight of it drew Rylock's strength, sucked the air from her lungs.

"Watch! It's slipping this way," Loghain warned her. Rylock tried to redirect the weight. Missed.

The statue's momentum overwhelmed Loghain. It crushed Rylock's hands against rock of the breach. She screamed: a thin lance of sound.

The statue tilted. The crushing edge rose. Rylock fell backward, sat down. She hissed through gritted teeth, folding her body over the mangled hands.

Loghain eased the statue into its final resting place. Then he stepped back - reached to touch her.

"I'll get you to Wynne," he said.

Rylock struck at him with her elbow. "Leave me alone!" Saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth.

Loghain suddenly sank to his knees. His rolled-up eyes revealed nothing but whites.

Black spots danced across Rylock's vision. She tried to catch him as he toppled like a felled oak.

A moment later, her own world guttered into darkness.

---

Murky green light suffused the tent, as though it stood underwater. It shone off the sweat-streaked, sallow faces of their two patients; off Wynne's fine light hair as she bent to check Loghain's pulse. Rilian jerked upright. One hand inched out of her tight, warm huddle, edged open the tent flap. Translucent light flooded in. Tucked in a tight curl just outside, Ravenous stared back. His stomach rumbled discontent. That was what had awakened her. She wished she could help. But after staying here three days longer than anticipated, there was barely enough food to nurse Loghain and Rylock.

Three days, with only slight improvement. Their predicament had jolted Rilian from her nightmare - forced her into the present. The memories lay in a deep, dark pit, watched over by the guardian statue of Andraste. She had listened to the moans - smelled the taint on their breath - sensed the darkness that filled them. It was terrifying because the darkspawn emissary - the Architect - had long ago used up Ostagar's last remaining supplies of the Joining mixture. In desperation, she and Wynne had used her own tainted blood instead - mixed with a healthy dose of lyrium.

Back inside the tent, she re-examined them. They did not feel like Wardens to her - nor like tainted humans. Colour was better, pulses stronger, breathing was improved - slow and regular. Bending close, Rilian sniffed at each neck, then smelled the breath. The skin was fresh - the exhalations free of the slimy cloudiness of taint. The smallest smile quirked her lips: both could use a good tooth-brushing, but at least they smelled human again.

A while later, Loghain stirred as she spooned broth into him - thinking of all the times she had done this for her mother, during the last days. She was wiping his chin when his eyes flew open. They were bright, clear. Startled, she rocked back on her heels, exclaiming aloud, nearly dropping the precious broth. He continued to look directly into her eyes: the hawk's stare still commanding. His first words came with difficulty:

"You all right? Not sick, like us? My men? Rylock - she all right? Her hands?" He tried to gesture. After three days of immobility, muscle was flaccid, coordination difficult.

"Wynne and I are alright. We lost four Night Elves: Pir Surana, Murl, Aris and Clayden. Rylock's hands are healing - Wynne fixed the bones." She described his journey to get help, Rylock in his arms - glossing over how he'd slumped to the ground as soon as she saw him.

Loghain looked toward the tent flap - then back to Rilian and Wynne. "How soon can Rylock travel?"

"Get well first." Rilian stifled his argument with a spoonful of broth. After swallowing, Loghain said: "We have to get away from here."

"We'll see." Exasperated yet pleased by his aggressive approach to recovery, Rilian wished she could distract him. Ravenous provided the answer. Ecstatic at the sound of Loghain's voice, his barking demanded attention. Rilian opened the tent flap and let him in. He nearly trampled Loghain, pushing his muzzle into his face, tongue flicking like a red, wet towel. Too weak to fend him off, delighted to see him, Loghain protested and flailed as best he could. Satisfied at last, Ravenous obeyed Rilian's command to go back outside. Rilian giggled at his contented air. Ravenous looked at her, wagged his short stub of a tail one last time.

By the time she looked back, Loghain had pushed himself up, bare chest lit by the flickering glow of their single candle.

"You making some sort of rally?"

"What do you mean: rally?" he barked, "I was just coasting - letting you do some work for a change."

Rilian laughed - suddenly filled with exultation. "We did it! Loghain - do you see what this means? You and Rylock - you both had Blight-sickness: now you're cured! I wonder what it is about your blood that's different now? It must be the same kind of thing as with my cousin: Shianni couldn't catch the Tevinter plague because she'd had marshfever! You were exposed to the Deep Roads before - with Maric - so you had resistance. And Rylock…Rylock had just taken a shed-load of lyrium! No wonder we put it in the Joining mixture: it must help the body fight infection!" She paused for breath. "Loghain - I need to take a sample of your blood!"

"You want our blood?" That was Rylock's voice - stern despite its weakness. Rilian turned to her, delighted. "You're back! Oh - this is wonderful!"

"Blood Magic?" Rylock was not to be dissuaded.

"Not magic. Medicine." Rilian said firmly, "The study of immunity to taint. It's called immune…immuney…immunology!" she finished triumphantly, "A respected profession among Wardens."

"The Wardens have no such profession," Rylock said flatly, "And you just made that word up."

"Aha!" Rilian countered smugly, "But I am the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. In fact, since the Wardens of Montsimmard and Weisshaupt have been useless, I'd say I am the First Warden. By definition. And the First Warden's Directive is the study of immunology!"

Loghain's grunt of laughter was cut short by Rylock, who said: "Warden - this path is wrong. Dangerous."

"It is a path the emissary - the Architect - is already on!"

Loghain's eyes widened at the name.

"That's right - he told me of your first meeting. And you were there, too, Rylock - at Kinloch Hold. And you, Wynne. You three of all people should know what a danger he is."

Rilian had never wanted to go back there - resented the conversation for making it necessary. Her voice was harsh with suppressed grief as she told them of Duncan, Boann - the creation of the Children. By the time she had finished, the silence in the tent was greyer than fog - and far colder. She had a glimpse of Rylock's face as she'd never seen it: pale, shocked, in agonizing pain. A moment later she pulled the frozen mask back in place: a storm behind a glacier.

Rilian thought, oddly, of an old Alienage horror story - about an evil shem lord whose sins showed only in his portrait. Was it the portrait's fault he was hideous and damned? No - it was the fault of the Man. Could she blame the Architect for trying to salvage some scrap of meaning from the existence he had been cursed with - to try to forge a future for his kind in the only way open to them? No - I cannot blame him…but I hate him nonetheless. I hate him for what he did to Boann and Duncan. I want him to know, before I kill him, that his goals are futile. I want his dreams to shrivel in his head. Nothing compares with the cruelty of seeing ones hopes for ones people trampled into filth. I want him to know the tree is dead; its fruit rotten. Maker forgive me.

Rylock was the first to speak. "Warden: this…creature and all his works must be eliminated. I know this. But the solution we need is military. I will take that letter - that shameful proof of the Grand Cleric's refusal to send men to Ostagar - to the Divine. I will speak of the fate of the Revered Mother of Denerim. And I will call for an Exalted March."

That moment saw a charge of excitement. Rilian realized suddenly how long she'd been waiting for something to bring that level of indignation to Rylock's face. Her dark eyes were narrowed, her jaw like a rock set upon another rock. Storm-clouds gathered in the dark eyes, heavying them; within the swirl of repressed rage, sword-point pupils glittered with intensity of purpose.

And even so, straight through the ring of Rylock's words, Rilian forced herself to say: "But even that may not be enough. We cannot let even one of these creatures escape - to breed more nightmares. The Architect told me that First Enchanter Remille had created a magical plague that would spread taint across the land - make all humanity into Wardens. It is the same filthy magic used by the Tevinters in the Alienage - to spread their Elf-only plague. But what if I could make it work for us - use it to spread a cure? A cure for us - death to the darkspawn..."

Well - not I. I know nothing about magic or medicine, and my purpose is still to die against the Archdemon. I will leave this in the hands of another: the one person I know who is skilled in Blood Magic. Jowan. And Ser Otto will be his moral guide.

"My duty is to defeat the Blight - by whatever means necessary," she finished.

"No, Warden," Rylock said softly, "Your duty is to defend mankind from the Blight. There is a difference. Your duty is to stand against the onslaught of the darkspawn - time and again. It is not for you to gamble with the lives of those in your care. It is not for you to play at being a god."

Templars and Wardens: so different yet so similar. The Architect told me the Wardens were first formed to fight Tevinter Blood Magic. I wonder: do the Orders come from the same roots? Did somebody, long long ago, have this same argument? Are the Templars the ones who believed as Rylock does - and refused to be part of such dangerous experiments?

It's like the Alienage story: about the girl and the box. Only - there is always hope. And the fact that science can be used for evil doesn't mean it can't also heal.

"Yes," Rilian said softly, "The Wardens have always maintained the balance: a Blight comes, and we fight it back. Time and again. No-one wins. What if it were possible to do more than that - upset the balance. Should we not try? Wynne: aren't you playing god every time you heal someone? If you refused to interfere, for fear of succumbing to demons, wouldn't you be as bad as someone who watches a man drown and does nothing to help?"

Wynne nodded slowly.

"If I am playing at being a god, isn't it because I am made in the image of one? How can it be wrong to try to put right what the Elves of Arlathan did wrong, millennia ago?"

"It won't corrupt you?"

"Certainly not. That offends me."

"I mean to. I want you to think about what you're doing. I'm your friend. That's why I'm telling you you're walking on the most dangerous ground a person can test. This power wasn't enough to save the Elves - nor the original Wardens. Do you honestly believe it can't corrupt you? Do you have the strength to reject it if there's a danger it should fall into the wrong hands?"

Twisting away, Rilian rose awkwardly to her feet. She stumbled out of the tent, into the cold light of morning. Ignoring Ravenous' greeting, she took several quick strides away, unable to will the stiffness from her back, the fury from her stride. She was giving her life - her soul - to defeat the Archdemon. Who was this Templar to doubt her?

Who was Rylock to examine the dark doubts that only she should know about?

Who was Rylock to make her cry?

She heard the sound of the tent flap - assumed it was Wynne. The steps were slow and faltering. She recognized the burned, battered hand that caught her shoulder - pulled free with a lunge that destroyed her balance. Stumbling clumsily, she rounded on Rylock.

Rylock should not be on her feet at all, she thought: the Templar looked pale, unsteady, with only Wynne's borrowed cloak to keep out the cold. The sadness in her quiet features stilled Rilian's harsh words. Rylock's dark eyes were bright with sombre conviction and bleak pride: the eyes of someone who did not expect to be understood or pardoned, but who would not recant. Rylock said: "You understand the darkspawn, and I cannot. I, on the other hand, can understand the perils of power. I have seen a Knight Commander seduced by the idea that only she could save a city. The things she really wanted and loved slipped through her fingers and she ended up clinging to the power because it was all she had left. I don't want to lose a friend again. Would you understand if I told you I don't fear the deaths of my friends so much as I fear losing them? Death is only the path to the Maker. But to fall…does that make sense?"

Rilian wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Impulsively, she reached to touch Rylock's cheek. "You're a troublesome Templar," she said, then smiled crookedly, "I think "troublesome" and "Templar" in the same sentence might be one word more than necessary."

They smiled at each other, seeking ever firmer ground in the moral maze between them.

Rilian went on: "Don't worry about the blood. I understand. I like you for that. For everything. Because you're who you are."

Rylock's dark eyes shone with a gratitude not quite aware of itself. She nodded briefly, then turned, heading for the nearby pool, anxious to pray.

Rilian turned at the sound of Loghain's voice. He was propped on one elbow, staring out of the tent. "So Warden - I take it you wish me to donate body and blood to your crazy research?"

Rilian smirked. "Just your blood. You can keep your body."

"Humph."

Loghain allowed her to attach one of the glass syringes she'd taken from Flemeth's hut to his arm. With Wynne's help, she drew a sample of his blood into a small glass tube once used to contain lyrium. Memories of the Architect crowded around her: she furiously blinked them back. When she was done, Loghain sank back, casually.

"And now," he said, "I'm well enough to want some privacy. Out - both of you."

Rilian and Wynne exchanged a glance. "Our pleasure, believe me," Rilian said - delighted at this unexpected chance for revenge that had fallen into her lap like a gift from the Maker, "We'll be outside - where there's interesting stuff to look at!"

Sometime later, Rilian sat staring down into the small pool. Dark memories, Rylock's warnings, and her own plans whirled frenetically through her mind.

The first drop of rain slipped softly into the water. Then another…and another…little ripples spreading outward, disturbing the smooth reflections.

We who live in this world do not have time to stand and stare at reflections. We do not notice them tremble. What is one more drop in so much water. Only when the drops begin to tumble fast and furiously do we see the rain falling through the air, feel it pricking our skin and wetting our clothes, but by then it is too late to seek shelter. Is that how the fall of Tevinter began - with a single Tear of Andraste falling unnoticed? If I had seen that first drop fall could I have understood the danger? Could I have prevented a whole civilization from crashing down around me?

The waters gave no answer.

---

Four hours later, Loghain's party returned to the ruins for one last time before leaving. They would return with the army: the Warden would have enough men to remove the makeshift barriers they'd put in place, descend into the tunnels and destroy the Architect and his creations. With any luck, the tunnels would lead on to the main Deep Roads, and the Archdemon would be next. While Loghain's army and that of the Bastard Prince would trap the approaching horde between them; break them upon the rock of Ostagar.

They headed for the main bridge, dragging their dead - Murl and Clayden - on wooden pallets. Pir Surana and Aris had died of the Architect's corruption, and nothing at all remained. They returned to Cailan's bloated corpse, to finish what Wynne and Rylock had started. On the way, he thought he saw the Warden pick up something from the ruins - caught a glint like a sickle moon - hesitate a moment, then place it carefully out of sight. Something belonging to Duncan? That would explain her reluctance to have him see it. He had thought for a moment it was a blade - but hiding that would make no sense: they needed all the weapons they could get. She seemed irreversibly aged since her capture: her skin held the greenish pallor of a corpse, and her hard-shut lips seemed to show beneath them the rigid grin of the skull. Together, Loghain, Rylock, Wynne and the Warden carried Cailan to the pyre and laid him beside the Night Elf dead. Although Loghain had assumed no fire would burn in such a Blight-infested place he was proven wrong: Cailan was burned like the Kings of old, a trace of the glory he had yearned for in the meaningless ritual.

Suddenly - before he could stop her - the Warden brought out two of the letters they had found and threw them on the pyre. The parchment crisped and curled instantly, shrivelling in the heat. The air before the pyre wavered and hissed. He was outraged - at her, for the staggering insolence, and at himself, for not having checked his belongings! He rounded on her; she met his gaze fearlessly. What had happened to her had put her beyond fear.

"I kept the letter concerning the Chantry," she said flatly, "Rylock will need that to call for an Exalted March. I saw no reason to keep documents damning Arl Eamon and the Couslands - or tainting Cailan's memory."

"The Couslands were traitors: keeping their ports open so the chevaliers could land - enforce this Maker-damned union!"

"Perhaps. But that is past. Supporting a marriage does not mean they would support an invasion. Why should I stand back and sign the death warrant of a man who has done me no harm - who, so my fiancé told me, remained behind allowing his Elven servants to escape! Maker knows they never had such treatment from you! What do I care for the politics of the Landsmeet: for whether your nationalism is better than Cousland's internationalism? I agree an Orlesian invasion would be a disaster - but so would giving the entire North to a man like Nathaniel Howe. If any nobles get too powerful, history is only going to repeat itself."

"I thought you'd given up meddling in politics," he remarked sourly.

"Oh, I'm not - meddling," she retorted, "I'm just - restoring the status quo! Keeping your mind focused on fighting the Blight instead of ruining Channon Cousland. Nor am I betraying my promise to Anora. You thought she made Valendrian a Bann in return for my political support - and the murder of Rendon Howe. Not so. She would have had my support anyway - and as for Valendrian, that was in return for promising to keep you safe, should the Landsmeet call for your execution. I was going to put you through the Joining."

Loghain absorbed that in silence.

"Oh," the Warden added, "I can't say I was sorry to chop Howe up into little pieces and feed him to Ravenous - have you seen how hungry he gets? But I did that on my own."

Loghain did not let on that he had guessed already what had really happened. He supposed he should be grateful she didn't hate him for that - for his ridiculous trust of Howe that had seen her violated. It was also possible she was protecting the little Elven maid, Erlina. There had to be someone who had passed those messages. He would have suspected the red-haired bard - but he had been reliably informed that Leliana had not left Lothering in two years. Unless there was a third agent - hiding in Denerim, perhaps?

He had been a Ferelden farmer once - he could see that too much consolidation of power was bad for the small man. He had thought himself the exception to the rule - but even he had to admit he'd failed spectacularly. Still, it was one thing to have robust debate during peace-time; quite another with Orlais growling like a wolf at the border. Still, Bann Sighard and Arl Bryland had put aside their differences with him, and the Warden was right - supporting a marriage did not mean Cousland would support an invasion. Knowing Anora, she would find a way to play Channon Cousland and Nathaniel Howe off as suitors, keeping their allegiance with promises while remaining Queen alone.

He looked at the Warden without rancour: like Rylock and Wynne, a political enemy - but a personal friend.

"Joining the Wardens - serving under that damned Orlesian - now that really would be a cup of poison!"

She smirked. "Well - I never promised Anora I'd give you an easy time!"

Thoughtfully, Loghain said: "I assume that since both Rylock and I recovered from Blight disease, we would survive it. I know both she and I would choose this fate in order to save Ferelden."

The Warden shook her head. A little wistfully, she replied, "No. I have someone else in mind to carry on my legacy - my research. I need you and Rylock where you are: leading Ferelden's army and the Templars. Besides, not even Guillaume Caron will call for your execution now - not when I explain about the Architect and the Children. Not even the First Warden will play waiting games: this has gone beyond the fate of one small backwater. Rylock will gather the Templars. Riordan will gather the Wardens. Together, there will be a reckoning."

The fire burned hotter, and a gout of sparks shivered into the leaden sky. Loghain watched two of his men - the boy he had loved - burn. It astonished him that the Warden had cared enough about Cailan's reputation - about Anora's feelings - to hide that part of the truth. She was still young enough to seek some illusions about the world, cover its ugliness with imagination and the ideal of a King who died true to his wife and country. For all her pragmatism - for all that an Alienage Elf couldn't really entertain notions that the world was a safe or just place - she had the tendency to recast life as it should be, while he dealt in facts. It was the same as her ridiculous versions of Howe's death, he supposed - and for all his avowed disgust at her tall tales he would never let on that he knew the truth, and spoil the stories. Still, she wasn't just a bard - did not merely try to escape reality. Like Gareth Mac Tir, she tried to remake the world to fit her ideals. Ideals built on a foundation of violence and loss.

He let her recite the words of the Chant:

…Here lies the Abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, my child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity…

The Warden expressed a fierce satisfaction that the flames were rising high - that the sight would not be hidden in the ground. As they turned away, he could have sworn she shook a fist at the opaque, uncaring sky. Such anger seemed a waste of time to him - according to the Chantry, the Maker had long abandoned the world. He believed the god had not done so on a whim - knowing the essential nature of mankind, he had seen that they deserved it.

As they moved out, Loghain glanced around at his group: Rylock, her face pale and drawn from the after-effects of Blight-sickness (he supposed his own wasn't in much better shape) - Wynne, ashen and haunted by the fate of the woman she had left behind - his Night Elves, grim and stoic after the loss of four of their number. Alim Surana looked like he couldn't quite believe his fearsome father could have succumbed to death - the young man was comforted by Tia, standing very close. The Warden: the white bandage on her jaw contrasting starkly with her vibrant hair. Suddenly her face was drained and drawn; her cheeks seemed to sink in even as he looked. He'd seen the same after battle, when men's wounds got cold. This needs the same remedy…

"I have a bottle in my tent," he told the company, "No Antivan brandy this time. Just good Ferelden malt whisky from north of Highever. Far better for us."

The Warden's lips twisted in a tight grin. "So. It isn't religion, then - your way of coping."

"I can't say religion was ever a comfort to me."

"Neither can I - not after…Never mind."

He stopped, turned to look for the last time at the pyre, the ashes of a failed trust.

Only because I loved you, my friend. A man who hated you could never hurt you as I have…

He let his view rise from the tainted monolith of Ostagar to the Blighted fields around: once fertile farmland - the heart of the southern Bannorn. My country, he thought, an echo of the Warden's words ringing in his mind, my land. Savaged, wounded, crushed to her knees and changed beyond recognition, but my country still. Neither of us can ever be the same - but I can be wiser than I was. I can love you better if not more. "You must rise."

The Warden looked at him curiously. "Still sick? What's that noise?"

"Nothing to you. Keep moving."

"I may kill you myself. I can defeat the Archdemon alone."

"You can't do either. Shut up. Take point."

In another moment, the lowering clouds broke, drenching the land in a cold, blinding torrent.

---

Song inspirations were:

Ostagar: Return To West Harbor, from Neverwinter Nights 2

Rilian's Capture: Sia – I'm In Here

Rilian And The Architect: Mazzy Star – Into Dust

The Taint: Florence and the Machine - Drumming Song

Cailan's Funeral: Daniel Lanois - Ice

AN: It seems logical to me that, since the darkspawn never reached Denerim in DATM, the Architect would not have founded his base in Amaranthine. As he is after Grey Warden blood, what better place to find it than Ostagar? I always wondered who The Mother might have been - and whether The First was once a Warden.

I must thank Shakespira for the idea concerning the creation of darkspawn as a means to resist Tevinter Blood Magic - it's from her brilliant "The Lion's Den" - and both Shakespira and icey cold for the use of lyrium as a boost to the immune system and the possibility of natural immunity to taint - those ideas are explored in our shared fic: "The Grey Tales". The theories of the Children being larval Broodmothers, Templars being break-away Grey Wardens and the Elves of Arlathan becoming the original demons of the Fade are (so far as I know!) unique to DATM – although the latter is very much inspired by Corypheus' words in Legacy.

A shout-out goes to Tyanilth for "good Ferelden malt whisky from North of Highever". See Chapter Six of "The Teyrn's Revenge". Have one on me :)

A shout-out also goes to Arsinoe: Rilian's suggestion, early in the chapter, of using The Rock near Gherlen's Pass to await the darkspawn was planted in my head after reading about the fortress in Victory at Ostagar. I'm actually not sure if it exists in canon or not. If not, I hope you don't mind me using it! Its existence is now irreversibly stuck in my mind...

The chapter title is from "Children of the Dust", by Louise Lawrence: a story that has stuck with me for more than twenty-five years and inspired the themes of evolution and extinction in Rilian's meeting with the Architect. There's a lot of "The Pit And The Pendulum", "Frankenstein" and "The Picture Of Dorian Grey" in there too...

The question of whether Wardens are protected from becoming Broodmothers by the taint is an interesting one. I believe yes: else surely not even Weisshaupt would be so foolish as to send women Wardens to the Deep Roads. Which means that the Architect's original plan in The Calling would have resulted in the sterility of both species. Hence my theory on his creation of the Children as proto-Broodmothers. The Architect, IMO, is not "evil" as such - but so alien that he would see nothing wrong with this. Never having known what it is to be untainted, he would have no idea what is being destroyed.

As to Rylock's Exalted March versus Rilian's medical arms-race: I would probably side with Rylock. But Rilian is the kind of visionary who will either save the world or damn it. Nor have I forgotten Avernus' research: at this stage in the story, there wasn't the opportunity to send them all the way to the North - but there is always the sequel!

Finally: I would like to get in a plug for a story I am very proud to Beta. It's been a long time, but the next chapter of Dragonracer's "The Hand We're Dealt" will be up shortly. Read it - it's wonderful!

Next up: Chapter Twenty-One - All Flesh Is Grass, in which the armies muster at Ostagar, Morrigan makes her offer, and (finally!) we catch up with what Alistair's been doing (I haven't forgotten him!)

Thank you to everyone still following this story. Your reviews and PMs make my day!