Ten: Between the Shadow and the Soul

We hear their hearts beating still, submerged, drowning.
If we had sons and daughters as you mortals do,
would we treat them with such cruelty?
For they stay here, screaming, unable to pass
to wherever it is you mortals pass to, what very little of you survives
when your bodies fail—

We cradle them in our bodies, these delicious children.
We have pity, unlike you.

—from the Canticle of Demons, stanza six: of the Harrowed

Leliana:

Leliana had never been fond of tunnels, but at least the tunnels beneath the Vigil were dry, if cold. "And of course, we will need to invite Brother Genitivi," she said to Zevran. The two of them were bringing up the rear of the group. Ahead of them, torches cast a wavering light on the walls. They had learned in the Deep Roads that it was not wise to rely on magelights, down in the deep. "He is still leading Chantry research teams in Haven, we can contact him there."

Zevran ran his thumb over his lips. "Are you certain this is a good idea? Things are unsettled yet."

"You are the one who went and got married with only the Drydens present as witnesses," Leliana said. "Besides. Kathil promised me that I would dance at the celebration. And since Anders has put my knee right—" mostly, at least— "I intend to hold her to that. We must make bold statements, and this is one of them."

"I do not think the Chantry is going to be impressed by this show of bravado." He raised his chin and pointed it in Kathil's direction, ahead of them. "Though I suppose it is minor, considering what else we have planned."

"Trust me, it will be the social event of the summer, and those who visit will witness for themselves Amaranthine's strength and her desperate need. Let those who come see for themselves that the Vigil in the hands of the Grey Wardens is not the pit of iniquity that rumor says." She smiled at Zevran. He was arguing only as a matter of form, of course; pride demanded at least a token objection to the idea of being more or less paraded before all of the notables who would feel compelled to show up to the celebration of the Commander of the Grey's wedding.

And they would feel compelled. Some would come out of friendship. Others would come out of curiosity. Still others would come out of cold spite, in hope that something dreadful would happen to Kathil.

But they would come, and that was the important part.

Ahead of them, Kathil stopped. "We're close." Leliana did not like the odd note in her voice, because she had heard it before. Generally, it heralded disaster of some sort.

They were just before an arched doorway, and beyond the door echoes reported a large space. Room or chasm, Leliana could not tell. The darkness was thick and oppressive; they had passed strange statues and altars to Avvar gods. What I would not give for a team of scholars and a year to study this place. There is so much down here, so much lost and fallen into ruin.

Ville slipped out into the darkness. The Crow—for Crow she was, even if Zevran closed his mouth and shook his head every time Leliana asked about her—called back, "It's a hall of some sort." a clatter made them all jump. "Piles of old dry bones here, too. Some creature's midden, I think."

Keili moaned, and put her hand against the wall. "It's here—whatever it is, it's here—"

That was all the warning they received before the presence pressed down on them.

Zevran:

The blindfold pressed against his eyes.

He'd grown used to it in the time he'd been in Ville's rooms near the edge of one of the markets, deep within Blooded territory. He didn't know how long he had been here, precisely; it felt like a few weeks, perhaps a month. Not so long as a season, not so short as a day.

Long enough to come to terms with this training.

(In his body, his hands were clenched. A jarring thud meant that he had fallen to the ground. He tried to tell himself this is the work of a demon but nothing was obeying him. Not his body. Not even his mind was his own.)

Ville's footsteps were distinctive; she wore soft shoes that shushed against the floorboards, and her steps were quick and light. She approached where he knelt in the center of the space that served as a living space and the place where Zevran would sleep at night when his master was finished with him. "Better today, young Zevran," she said. "The rooms are nearly in order. The chairs are only very slightly out of place."

The three lanterns in the window were in precisely the correct locations for signaling. The daggers on the desk were lined up just so; the clothing organized impeccably. But the chairs, ah, they always defeated him.

He felt her hand on his shoulder, and kept his eyes closed behind the blindfold. He could cheat, if he wanted; through the cloth he could see some gradations of light and dark. In the beginning, he had peeked out a little.

She knew, though. She always knew. Ville had an unerring nose for defiance of all kinds. Another Crow master might have beaten Zevran for it, or hung him on the rack and applied the various instruments of their trade.

That was not Ville's way, and her genius was far subtler than the torture rack could encompass.

I imagine you have learned not to want, young Zevran, for it has not been safe for you to want. I will teach you desire. Any fool can learn to shut away his hungers. You must learn how to master them, use them. And when the time is right, to give into them.

She traced a finger down the side of his face. He shuddered, despite himself, and she chuckled. "Have you learned your lesson yet?"

Always that same question, every day. And his answer was, so far, always the same. "Which lesson?"

Ville's chuckle was throaty. "Come. I will show you, yes?"

(Zevran arched his back—the only motion he was allowed—and tried to curl his toes. He was ragingly hard, his breath coming hard and fast. Fight. You must fight. But breaking free was far easier said than done, and there was too much of him mired in memory.)

He had hated her at first with all the frustrated hunger he owned, a deep well of rage. She had seated herself on the edge of the bed the first night and said simply, worship me. It had taken him some time to work out what she had meant.

It was not enough to merely submit. Submission was taught by the breaking-masters, and Ville was after something far subtler. He read her without knowing how he was doing so, each intake of breath and movement of her hand carrying a wealth of information. Today was different from the days before. She wanted something else from him.

She had never laid a finger on him in punishment, and yet his deepest fear at this moment was that he would disappoint her. Her clothes came off under his hands, leaving her clad only in the intricate web of tattoos that Zevran had never seen, only felt as subtle variations in the texture of her skin. They were a map of pleasure, and as always his fingers followed the curves of it. There were scars he didn't remember on her shoulder, three of them—had he simply forgotten?

Then he stopped. Pulled back.

"Something is wrong?" she asked.

His breath was ragged in his throat. "This is not what you desire."

"Oh? What do I desire, my desert thorn?" Ville's voice was full of something, some emotion that was not quite pleasure, not quite pain. She stepped close to him. He could feel the heat radiating off of her naked skin.

Zevran swallowed. "You return to your home after a kill, smelling of sorrow and of anger. You desire—" How to say it? What was the word for what this woman needed? She was still as stone, and so was he. A drop of sweat made its way between his shoulderblades. "Absolution," he said. "And it is not something you can go to Thrit with, or Llumine. So you come home in the hope that I will prove distracting."

"There you are wrong," she said. She put one small hand on his chest, just over her heart. "I come home in hope that my student has learned his lesson, and is capable of giving me what I need."

Zevran put one hand over hers. "Then shall we dance, my master?" With his other hand, he touched the side of her face. A moment later, he laid his lips on hers. He knew her body in so many ways, had explored its most intimate recesses—but this was the first time he had dared kiss her.

She murmured something wordless and kissed him back.

(Zevran stopped struggling. He had learned a valuable lesson that day—that to master desire, it was not enough to fight it. One must lean into it, to give in without losing control.

The answer came softly, and he could not believe he had not seen it before.)

"Tell me," he said, his lips still on Ville's. "Three daggers on the desk. Three paper lanterns hanging in the window. Three new scars on your shoulder. Why three? What is important about that number?"

She went stiff against him, with a twitch as of a dreamer waking. "Three is the number of recall," she said. "One is to enter. Two is to act. Three...is to return."

Ville's hand clenched on his shirt, but she was gone in the next heartbeat. As was the room, as was the blindfold, and Zevran was falling upward, out of memory and into the present.

Jowan:

He followed close on Anders' heels. "You're a full enchanter," he hissed at Ander's back. "Why don't you do something?"

"Don't you think I want to?" Anders glanced over his shoulder. "Don't you think that if I could stop this, I would? But the moment I talk to Irving I'm dead, and I like being alive. All I can do is help with the aftermath. Or try, at least."

They emerged into the apprentice stacks, magelights in the carrels burning low. "So that's it? You're not going to tell anyone? Not even Kathil?"

Anders stopped, and turned towards him. In the dim of the library, his eyes were black pits in his strong-boned face. "If Sati wanted Kathil to know, don't you think she would have told her already? Besides, she's your friend. You tell her, if you want her to know that badly. What do you think your little friend is going to do, exactly? Confront Uldred?"

She probably would. And she would probably die doing it. "I just can't sit by knowing that this is happening," he said. "This is wrong. I could feel what he was doing to her. He's..."

"Defiling her soul as well as her body," Anders said. "I know. Trust me, I know. None of his coterie want to be there, and yet they all go to him when he calls. He's preparing them for something. All of them. And they all know that the moment they breathe a word, the moment they ask for help, they get denounced as blood mages and spitted. If they're lucky. If they're not lucky..." He shrugged. "There are things worse than death. A lot worse."

Jowan felt ill. When he'd glimpsed Uldred's naked back in one of the enchanter carrels, recognized the woman beneath him, he had been ready to rush in and confront Sati. Anders had dragged him physically away, and in a harsh whisper he had explained what was happening.

Anders knew. And Anders did nothing.

"You coward," he said.

"Never claimed anything else," the other mage said, and shrugged. "It's not right, but neither is this whole situation, this Tower and the Templars and all of us locked in here like good little sheep. Go, Jowan, before Ser Jair recovers from what I dosed his tea with. Get to bed."

There was nothing else to say. Nothing else he could say. So Jowan walked into the whispering shadows of the library, leaving Anders behind. On the top of the stack of books he carried was the tome of advanced healing spells that he'd talked Anders into helping him obtain. He hadn't even glanced at the rest of the books Jowan had grabbed.

I won't end up like Sati, he told himself. If I'm going to learn this, I have to be careful.

It was his imagination that some of the books he carried throbbed a little, as if they were thirsty.

(But they didn't feel like that. They were just books. The worst thing about them was the dust—)

Sati had been dead for six years, the Tower was broken, and Anders was a Warden.

Jowan broke the surface of memory, and rose into darkness.

Lorn:

Heat torments him.

He lies on his side in this strange place, panting, burning from the inside. He laps water, but it does not cool him. He whines for his human, but his human does not come to comfort hm.

When the shadows are long, he remembers that his human is dead and will never come to comfort him again.

And that too is pain.

The human who smells like smoke and brings him bowls of water tries to soothe him, but he will not be soothed. Everything around him is wrong. It is as if the world has worn thin.

Then a new scent catches his nose, and he raises his head. Lightning, frost, dust. Familiar.

He remembers.

The world is thin, because this is not the world. This is a dream, like the dreams of running and chasing he has sometimes, but it is not fun like those dreams.

He shoves himself to his feet. The dream tries to convince him that he is sick, but he is not sick. He is well, better than well, and they are down a very strange hole that smells like sunlight and mother's milk. His human needs him.

Lorn bolts out of memory, into the world.

Kathil:

She tried on Mama's bracelets, one after the other, admiring the pale green one, the one black as soot. They were smooth to the touch and felt nice against her skin. She stuck one in her mouth, thoughtfully.

"Oh, baby girl, those aren't for chewing." Mama swooped in and the bracelets vanished. "Horace, really. Leandra was struggling even with just Etain. Now, with the twins...her letters sound desperate. Surely we can do something."

"I'm not going to let you risk yourself to the roads," Papa said. Kathil scooted over to him, and he picked her up and sat her on her lap. She grinned and sniggled into her father's broad chest. His voice was like distant thunder, and his beard tickled the top of her head. "Not in your condition. Lothering's weeks away from here."

"Then we can send them something—money, people—" Mama stopped, and shook her head. She picked up her comb again, pulling her hair over her shoulder. It made little crackling and snapping noises as she attacked it with the comb. "I know you hate my family, and maybe you're right. But Leandra is my twin, Horace. She needs me."

"She's the one who married an apostate," Papa said. "I told you that I wasn't going to let them leech off of you, and I still stand by it. They were sucking you dry when I met you, Amell. This may just be a ploy to draw you in again."

Mama's voice cracked, and Kathil sat up, alarmed. "Mother and Father are both dead, and Leandra and Kennit are the only family I have left outside of Kirkwall. Surely it wouldn't do so much harm to help them. Kennit is useless, I know, but Leandra has never asked for anything—not from us, and not from Gamlen. That she's come so close to begging means that things are truly desperate for her." She was braiding her hair, her fingers moving so quickly that Kathil thought it must be magic, how the linen-colored hairs wove themselves together. Shesen told her stories about how princesses had hair that would braid itself, and Kathil believed that her mother must be a princess. "Please, at least consider it. Maybe you can have a word with Bryland?"

"Maybe." Papa put his arms around Kathil, and she relaxed against him, reassured. "I'll think about it. No promises, though."

Mama tied the end of her braid with a red ribbon, and came over to them. She bent over and kissed Kathil on the cheek. Kathil reached out and patted Mama's stomach, which was round and both taut and soft at the same time. Her little brother or sister was in there, Mama said. Growing big and strong so they could be born and be Kathil's friend. "Go downstairs," she said to Papa. "I'll be down in a little bit." She kissed Papa, lingering a little as if the kiss were a question.

"Where are we going?" Kathil asked.

"The ice races," Papa said. "Maybe this year I'll take a run myself and show all the young bucks how it's done."

Mama laughed and kissed Papa. "You'll break your neck and then where would we be? Let the boys have their day, just like you had yours." Her voice was fond, and she kissed him again. "Go on, now. I need to find my gloves."

Papa stood, lifting Kathil up onto his shoulders. She giggled and fisted her hands in his hair, and ducked when they passed through the doorway and into the hall.

(She shouldn't be remembering this. All of this was taken away from her by the Circle. She was a mage, and mages had no family but the Circle, no home but the Tower.)

When they got to the stairs that led down into the bailey, Papa put her down. "Keep one hand on the wall," he told her. "The steps are a little icy." She nodded; when she breathed out the white clouds of her breath hung on the air. She swiped one hand through the cloud, watching it eddy where her fingers passed through.

The air bit at her cheeks and nose, and she concentrated on keeping herself upright as she climbed down the stairs on her short legs. Once they were in the bailey Papa picked her up again. He started talking to Ser Lathir, who was wearing that armor with a long skirt that always made her giggle to see it. It's not nice to laugh at the Templars, Mama always said. Besides, little one, it is best that you never bring yourself to their attention.

So she covered her mouth with her hands and snuggled into her cloak, safe in her Papa's arms.

Mama was coming down the steps, taking them two at a time. Kathil freed a hand from the folds of her cloak and waved. "Mama!"

Mama waved back, taking her hand from the wall to do so. Papa called, "Amell, be careful—"

(No.)

And she was falling, coming down hard with a crack that sounded like the world ending. Kathil screamed—Papa was running towards the steps—Mama was tumbling down them, limp as a rag doll, and there was blood—

(She fought, struggling not to see. This is the past. This is not real. Not here. Not now.

Now she had her own daughter to protect, and no power or principality could hold her from that.)

She turned away from her mother's open eyes that stared into nothingness and tore herself out of her father's hands. Around her was the cracking sound of wings spreading, an alien song rising.

Kathil's wings bore her upward, her dream-body opening around her into a form both familiar and terribly strange.

Leliana:

Someone was whispering, "I killed them. I killed them. I killed them."

It took her a moment to realize that it was Keili speaking. Around her, prone forms were stirring in the oppressive darkness; the torches had gone out. That awful sense of presence was still there, unmoving.

She had fought through a dream of Marjolaine that was less a dream than a memory, re-experiencing the events leading up to Leliana's departure for Ferelden with an unsettling vividness. She hadn't realized until she'd been thrown into a cell that she wasn't living the memory for the first time.

"Everyone all right?" That was Kathil. "Andraste's knickers. That was..." She trailed off, sounding lost. Then she muttered a word and a flare of magelight illuminated her hand and face. She sent it flying away from her fingertips, and it brightened until they were all illuminated in a sickly greenish glow.

Zevran was stirring, and when he sat up he reached for Kathil, wordless. She scooted over to him, and put her hand in his. Around them, the others were sitting up; Keili was rocking back and forth, her arms around her knees and her eyes screwed tightly shut, whispering incomprehensibly. Jowan had put his back against the wall, and stayed silent. Ville stood and stretched. "Well. That was interesting."

Sigrun was rubbing her temples. "Felt like I got hit over the head. I was remembering my funeral, for some reason. Ow."

"Now what?" Bran asked. He'd taken off his helmet; he looked at Keili and worry creased his brow. "Um...I don't think she's all right."

"See if you can find out what's wrong with her." Kathil stood, and then hauled Zevran up beside her. Lorn shoved his head against her hip, and she scratched absently behind the dog's ears. "I have to figure out how to talk to this thing."

"Talk to it?" Zevran looked at her askance. "Should we not be working on how to eliminate it?"

Leliana pulled herself to her feet. "I'm not sure it can be eliminated. Remember the altar we saw on the way down here? It was dedicated to Korth the Mountain-Father, and all of the statues and the scripts on the walls concern him, I think. It might not be him—but there might be a reason that the Avvars worshiped him here."

"Like trying to put a sword through the heart of a storm," Kathil said. "We'd just end up pissing it off. Besides, I don't think it means us any harm. I've met things like this that did mean me harm. I think that was its version of a greeting."

"I hope it doesn't try to say anything else to us, then," Sigrun said. "We were out for four hours. Anything could have come up and had us for a snack."

There was a muffled sniffling coming from Keili, and Leliana glanced over at her. Bran had his arms around her, patting her back awkwardly, but he looked intensely confused. "Is she wounded?" Leliana asked.

He shook his head. "No, she...just grabbed me and started crying." He glanced down at Keili's head. "Er...what am I supposed to do?"

"Just keep on as you are," Leliana said. She climbed to her feet. "Dearest, exactly what do you propose we do here?"

"Give me a little." There was a look on the mage's face that Leliana recognized, the abstraction of desperately going through alternatives and discarding them one by one. She sighed, and rounded her shoulders. "I wish Cullen were here. Bran, you'll have to do."

The Templar Warden looked uncomfortable. The suggestion that he might substitute for Cullen in any way appeared to make him want to run for the hills. He stayed in place only by what appeared to be a supreme effort of will. "What are you going to want me to do?"

"When I tell you to close the Veil, I am going to need you to do the cleansing, and then I'm going to need you to hold it, hard. We may be running at the time, so it will be...challenging. Jowan, I need you to keep an eye out for anything that might decide to sneak up on us. I'm going to be hanging out a sign that proclaims what a good meal I'd make. Unfortunate, but necessary." He nodded to her. "Keili...oh. Sod."

Keili had stopped sobbing, though she was still clinging to Bran, shivering and staring into the darkness. "Bran. Let her go." Bran looked more than happy to do so, though he had some trouble with getting himself free from her. He left her crouched on the floor and stepped away.

Kathil walked up to her. In the green light she'd cast, she looked old, and tired, and hard. The look on her face was one that Leliana imagined every Warden-Commander had worn at one time or another, anger and exhaustion commingled and mixed with a certain amount of disappointment. "Keili," she said. The woman crouched on the floor didn't respond. "Warden-mage Keili."

Keili looked up.

The crack of Kathil's hand across Keili's face echoed as she went spinning away and sprawled on the stone floor. The mage tried to pick herself up—to run or to face her commander, Leliana did not know—but Kathil grabbed the collar of her robes and hauled her upright, then spun the other woman to face her. "You can fall apart on your own time. Right now, one of the principalities of the world is right over there. If you fail to control yourself it will have you for lunch, even if it doesn't mean to, and then the rest of us will die. Control yourself, or by Andraste I will gut you rather than let you get us all killed."

Keili swallowed, and breathed in. "Yes, Commander," she said in a voice that was just barely a squeak. Behind her, Bran's hand had gone to his sword. He glanced down at where he gripped the hilt, bewildered.

"Good," Kathil said. "You're firepower, and I mean that literally. If something comes after us, pour on the pain. Jowan will point you in the right direction. Don't worry about hitting me." She turned away and surveyed the rest of them. "If I tell you to run, you run. You're going to be seeing and hearing some strange things, but if this goes well we should all come out the other side whole."

"If it goes badly?" Sigrun asked.

She raised an eyebrow. "How deep are we down?"

The little dwarf shrugged. "Maybe half a mile. Why?"

"Just hope it doesn't go badly, then, because if it does we're all dead." Kathil turned away from them. "Jowan, I need more light."

He nodded and began to cast the magelights; his were a warm orange almost like sunset, strengthening as they flew upwards. Kathil's own magelight winked out.

She bent over and started unlacing her boots. They all watched in uncomfortable silence as she pulled off her boots and socks, then stepped barefoot into the great echoing hall into which even the strongest light was swallowed.

Behind Leliana, Ville spoke. "Are you entirely certain she is sane, Zevran?"

At that moment, Leliana thought that all of them were asking themselves that question.

Kathil:

Every step took her farther into the center of the creature's power.

The soles of her feet tingled in warning. She paused and opened herself to the darkness, just a little; just enough to determine that this was not precisely an old road they were standing on, but it was close enough to suffice. Whatever lived in this place, it was nothing she had ever encountered before.

"My name is Kathil Amell, Commander of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden, Enchanter, Thrice-bound. I have come to seek counsel. Who lives here, down in the deep?"

She pushed power into each word, and opened her senses a little bit more. The presence of whatever lived here was not getting any easier to bear. It weighed on her, reminded her of countless days of travel, of magic she had spent too much of her soul to learn.

The sound that rumbled out of the darkness was like stones screaming, a guttural rumble and crack. Memory, it said. I remember. I wake.

Something brushed her face in the darkness. Kathil fought not to flinch. She'd thought she'd known what she was doing, but alone in the darkness with the presence all around her, she realized that she did not. No Templar's power would be able to hold off the presence even for a moment. They would not be able to run fast enough to get away from it.

She was going to have to negotiate, then, and pray it was in a good mood.

"Are you the guardian of this place?" she asked.

The presence seemed to pause to think about this for a moment. I am this place. I am Memory. I am That Which Sleeps Without Sleeping. I am Watchfulness.

"The Fortress of a Thousand Vigils," Kathil murmured. "I understand."

Something brushed Kathil's face again. Then, her hair. The darkness was a thousand feathers, each of them touching her gently. The sense of being studied nearly flattened her, and her skin was crawling.

Who are you to wake me? The darkness was almost querulous. I drink you, little mortal. I drink your memory. I will keep you safe within me forever. It paused. The touching was growing intense, and the sensation was turning from soft-edged feathers to broken, rough-edged stones. She felt a particularly sharp one open a stinging cut on her cheek. What are you?

Kathil dropped to one knee and put her left palm flat against the ground. The scars on her shoulder and her face flared in pain, and she knew that they were shedding an icy light. "Mage," she whispered. "Warden. Demon-haunted." She swallowed. "A thing made for wolves to fear."

She curled her hand into the stone, and her fingers passed into the Fade.

Urthemiel's shadow unfurled around her, violet against black.

She waited a moment, for what she was not sure. She could feel nothing but the presence; its power was so immense she was blinded to all else. If there were demons or Unwilling on the other side of the Veil from her, she would never be able to tell before they attacked.

Her voice was steady in the darkness. "I name you Memory and call you Vigilance, you who were once named Korth the Mountain-Father. I command the fortress that you bear on your back. We have a common goal and a common need." The shadow of Urthemiel flexed its wings, tail lashing once. It was taking the brunt of Memory's interest, easily handling a regard that would have snuffed her out. Old Gods did not buckle easily, even when they were merely shades. "This place shelters my people, the Grey Wardens. There is a storm coming. We must be ready."

The presence seemed to be considering her words. You woke me.

One did not lie to a creature like this. "I did, but accidentally. There are mages here of rare power. We are likely to trouble your surface from time to time."

There was a long pause then. When the voice returned, it was a distant avalanche. You are a strange creature, mortal that is not a mortal. It has been some time since the world has disturbed me. What do you wish of me, and what do you give in return?

Her mouth was so dry, but she didn't dare lick her lips. "I offer a battle worthy of this place. It has only recently driven back a wave of twisted creatures. More will come, and others. What I want is your help in that battle, as you can give it."

I am bound to this place. My influence is limited. I watch. The mortals must fight their battles without me. It sounded nearly regretful.

An idea entered her head. It was a terrible gamble, a desperate risk—and it might yet save them all. "Even that is enough. My blood and breath is sworn to the Order, and the Order holds this fortress. In a way, each member of the Grey is bound to you."

I see. She realized that she had just amused the creature. It is as if she had tickled a mountain's toes, and heard it laugh. It is too clever for its own good. The terms are acceptable.

"And you will let me and mine walk from here unharmed, and only watch until the day when I call you."

I watch. But one of your number will stay behind, with me. That is the price for the lives of the rest.

"I do not sacrifice my own—"

It is not your choice. The presence bore down on her, freezing her in place, and even the shadow of the dragon around her stilled. She could feel Urthemiel thrashing desperately, trying to free itself. That one will do. I will see you again, Commander of the Grey.

Then the presence lifted, and Kathil realized that she was pressed flat to the floor. Her head was ringing, and her chin felt—strange. She touched her face, and felt blood. She'd cut herself when she'd fallen.

Urthemiel's shadow was gone. She picked herself up, holding one hand against her chin. A spell cast right here would likely not be a good idea, and she was unlikely to bleed to death from a split chin. Swallowing dread, she turned to those who had followed her down into darkness.

They were looking around too, and Leliana said, "Bran. Bran is gone." Her voice was trembling.

Kathil closed her eyes. "Korth was a god of battle, among other things." Bran had been the only warrior down here. Sigrun might have sufficed, but Kathil thought that her dwarven resistance to magic would have made her a less attractive choice. And for one tiny, craven moment, she was so glad that she had not brought Cullen down here with them.

Terrible, to lose one of her own, and only feel that black gratitude that it hadn't been someone she loved.

"He's beyond our reach now," she said. Blood was dripping over her fingers, falling to the floor. "We shouldn't linger here."

They left the creature called Memory in its dark place in the earth, and began to walk through the winding tunnels that led to the fortress, and sanity.

Cullen:

Maker's Breath, what is it now?

Lieutenant Maverlies was pelting towards him, but he didn't need her to tell him that there was trouble. The Veil was shuddering, rippling in protest. "Ser Cullen—in the outer ward—it's one of the mages!"

Anders or Kinnon, then. The rest of the mages were down beneath the Vigil, trying to sing a demon back to sleep. He grabbed his sword from the rack and started running, and Maverlies was beside him. They ran through the halls of the Keep and through the inner ward, passing unheeded through the gates.

The outer ward was a scene of panic and smoke, centered around something that looked far too much like a battlefield. There were people lying on the ground, most of them armored, most of them obviously dead, if the burned skin and open, staring eyes were anything to go by.

Anders was standing in the center of the battlefield, and light was leaking from his eyes.

That was never a good sign. Reflexively, he reached for the cleansing, then paused. "What happened?" he asked Maverlies.

She shook her head. "I wasn't close enough. All I could see was that one of the other Wardens attacked Anders, and suddenly there were all of these people—" She gestured at the bodies. "They came out of nowhere. None of them were anyone I'd ever met, not Wardens, not guards. And they were alive when I left to get you."

Nobody was approaching Anders. Though the guards in the outer ward all had their hands on their swords, none of them seemed to be willing to come close to him. The light that was coming from him was fading. "Which Warden?" A terrible suspicion was descending upon him.

"Ser Rialt," Maverlies said. "Impossible to mistake that shield."

Rialt. One of the Templar Wardens. Someone Cullen didn't know nearly as well as he ought to have. Rialt had always been quiet and calm, someone who didn't make friends easily. He often slipped beneath notice in this fortress.

Three years ago, Cullen would have been absolutely sure what had happened—Anders had done something stupid, Rialt had attacked him, and Anders had killed him. But it wasn't three years ago, and there were things that just didn't fit. Like the fact that Anders was alive and Rialt was dead. Anders was not Kathil. He hadn't spent years learning to fight off the effects of the cleansing, and he was no arcane warrior. And maybe Anders might have bested one Templar, but—

He paused, and counted bodies. Ten armed and armored men, in total. He hadn't noticed before, but a couple of them looked like they had been ripped limb from limb.

"Stay here," he told Maverlies, and walked forward.

Anders was looking around him with a stunned expression. His mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. Cullen drew near, feeling the way the Veil was still troubled around them. "Anders," he called as he stepped onto the scorched circle. "Anders, what happened?"

The healer took a step back, then another. His eyes finally focused on Cullen. Panic wrote itself across his features; a spasm passed through him, shaking his shoulders.

The mage whirled, and ran.

Cullen's first instinct was to give chase. He checked the impulse; Anders was a Warden, not a fugitive apostate. Cullen had no backup but the guards, and he thought that leaving the fortress right now, with Cerys in the care of some of Varel's guards, might be a very bad idea. Especially alone. They were near the gate, and Anders faced no resistance when he fled beneath the portcullis and vanished.

Maverlies was standing next to him, now. "Let him go," he said. "Let's search the bodies. I want to know who these people were and what they were doing here. If we can find someone who was closer, who would have heard if there were words exchanged, I want to talk to them."

She nodded and began to direct her people. Half an hour later, he'd talked to five people who hadn't seen anything but the first explosion, two who had thought they had heard an argument, and one old man who insisted that the Maker Himself had ridden out of the sky on a spotted pony and struck the armored men down.

The last person he had to talk to was a young woman who looked like she was scared just about out of her wits. "That…that was my tent," she said, pointing at a crumpled ruin among the char. "I was just coming out with my laundry, and I saw a man in mage robes standing by the road. He…looked like he was having a conversation with himself. Then he started glowing." She swallowed and wrapped her thin arms around herself. "Then another man, one in armor, came up with his sword out and attacked him. He yelled something, and all of a sudden there were so many of them. So many swords. They were all shouting and the air went funny, and the man in the mage robes started yelling back. He looked mad. Then I ran away as fast as I could." She looked at her former tent. "Everything I owned was in there."

"Did the other men seem to know the first two?" Cullen asked.

"They knew the man in armor, I think. They came out when he shouted. Something about abominations. The mage was yelling something about it being unjust…I remember he used that word, unjust. I thought it was strange. "

He talked to her for a few more minutes, but she truly hadn't seen much. When Maverlies returned, she was shaking her head. "I think a couple of them might have been Templars, they had that look about them. The rest were bruisers, probably local. Except for one. That one had this hanging around his neck, under his armor." She handed him a pendant on a tarnished silver chain.

One side was covered with symbols that Cullen couldn't read, some sort of writing, he thought. The other side had a raised symbol on it. An open eye, surrounded by flames.

There was a chill between his shoulders, and a cold dread in his gut. "Maker's Breath."

"That's what I said." Maverlies was looking at the Seeker emblem, rubbing her forearm absently. The sound of her glove on mail grated softly. "Does this have something to do with the list the Warden-Commander asked Garavel to put together?"

"Yes." He saw no point in lying.

She breathed out. "It's wrong, the Chantry harassing the Wardens. Do they have no gratitude?"

That, at least, was an easy answer. "No. They don't. Have the bodies buried in the potter's field, Lieutenant. Once the Commander returns, I'm sure she'll have an opinion on what should be done." He folded his hand over the Seeker's emblem. "If anyone asks, tell them…" What? What, precisely, could they say? "Tell them everything is under control."

Even if that was an utter lie.

Kathil, you had better get back soon.

Kathil:

"You can't do this!"

She was beyond anger. Beyond fear, beyond doubt. I name you Memory and call you Vigilance. "I can. Within these walls, I am the single authority. Revered Sister, you are no longer wanted. Get. Out."

The Sister's eyes were wide. She took a step back without volition. "The Grand Cleric—"

"The Grand Cleric and I will have words, one of these days. The Chantry has no authority over the Wardens, and within these walls it has no sovereignty. Run to Denerim. Tell the Grand Cleric that this campaign of harassment of Grey Wardens will not be tolerated. No person officially attached to the Chantry will be allowed within these walls." She pointed at the door. "Out, before I have you removed."

Possibly it was the fact that Cullen and Zevran were standing at her shoulder or the fact that there were small sparks dancing along the backs of Kathil's hands that made the woman look at them as if she saw her own death standing with them. The Revered Sister was pale as snow, and she swallowed convulsively.

She went, and closed the door behind her.

"That's the last," Kathil said into the incense-scented quiet of the chapel. "It's done."

"Have you thought about what comes next?" Cullen asked. "We're going to lose a lot of people, I think. I've heard the rumors spreading, that you're an abomination and you're about to induct everyone in the fortress into some sort of bizarre Antivan sex cult."

Zevran chuckled. "That sounds like an interesting idea, no? Perhaps we should."

She raised an eyebrow as she turned to face the two of them. "Do the Antivans have bizarre sex cults?"

"Not that I have ever encountered personally, more's the pity. We could invent one." He smiled at her, and the tension in her chest eased slightly. "Though the question still stands. What now?"

Kathil ran her hands over her hair. "Now we live our lives, and wait. There is work to be done. A wedding celebration to hold, so I hear." She smiled at Zevran. "And one day, the Chantry will come knocking on our door, and it is our job to be prepared. We find more Wardens and do what we can to rebuild the Order, and this arling. We put down the darkspawn when we find them. Wait for Anders to resurface." She twitched the corner of her mouth and gestured at the pews. "I'm sure I can talk Leliana into holding study sessions in here on the Chant of Light. I'm not outlawing the Chant. Just the Chantry."

Zevran chuckled and stepped forward, sliding an arm around her waist. She leaned into his wiry solidity. "You are a heretic," he said. "I approve."

Cullen slid in on her other side, and wrapped his arms around both of them. "So are we all."

She put the side of her head against his shoulder. "There is something you should know, the two of you. The presence…whatever it did to us completely ripped away the spells on me, and on Jowan and Keili. We all have our memories back now." The three of them had talked about it briefly on their way back up into the fortress. "I think we can assume that the other parts of that particular spell are gone, as well."

The two men were silent for a moment, considering the implications. "Well," Zevran said. His lips were almost touching her ear. "I do not mind the idea of more children, but you are the one who must carry them."

"Some day, maybe," she said. "We'll see. Now, I suppose there's probably an emergency somewhere in the fortress that needs attention."

None of them moved.

They were alive, and as whole as they ever were. The late afternoon sunlight filtered in through the rose window of the chapel, bathing them in color. All sound from beyond the chapel was muffled by thick stone walls, but instead of feeling suffocating, the silence felt as if it were anticipating something.

What is born here, in this room, and what dies?

She did not have the answers, only suspicions. Even Andraste had been considered a heretic, in her own time.

Kathil closed her eyes.

Let them come.

We will be ready.

.

.

Author's Note:

….whew. This pair of chapters was difficult. But I wanted to finish them because I, like many folks in this fandom, am going to be spending the next couple of weeks playing DA2. Updates will resume likely around the end of March.

I just want to thank everyone again who's stuck with me this far, and left reviews and favorites and such. It's a pretty wild ride from here till the end.

P.S. I am totally, hugely excited about the ending I have planned for this series. I adore epic showdowns, and this is going to be an Extremely Epic Showdown. :)