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Ch 18 - Wynne

Since she'd arrived in Aeonar, it had been rather obvious that she'd had an advantage over all the other mages there. She'd been able to sleep, for one. Not the fitful, guarded shuteyes that left one more tired and desperate than before, and not the deep, tormented slumber of those trapped in the Fade, who lay on the floor of their cells drenched in their bodily produce, soon to meet their demise by starvation and lack of motion. She hadn't turned into an abomination either, as it had been expected of her, judging by the guarded looks of the Templars assigned to supervise and feed her - which, in Aeonar, occurred once every three days, in the form of a lukewarm, tasteless, unidentifiable gruel that, luckily, didn't contain anything alive. This hadn't bothered her much, anyway; at her age and with her experience, she was used to go on by little of everything, except maybe a bottle of wine and a good read in the evenings. If anything, the three months spent in there had brought her closer with her spirit guardian, allowing her to spend a few good hours every day in the Fade to experiment, to read (only books that she remembered by heart) or even to relish in a good feast now and then, when hunger and thirst really got to her, in the select company of four or five wisps, creatures of the Fade that had never lost their apparent affinity to her since she'd learned of their existence, as an apprentice, some fifty years before. For all the Templars knew, she was meditating. And she was sleeping soundly eight hours in twenty four.

Of course, there was some part of hardship. The screams never seemed to cease completely – in one or another of the blindingly lit cells (there were bright magelight lamps hung on every wall, at all hours) somebody was ever tormented or turned. One slip it was all it took, Wynne had always known. The desperation of many carried them over the brink, in the land of all possibilities, in a pitiful attempt to even the odds and regain their freedom, while they seemed to forget that the land of all possibilities was also the land of all doom.

Much like the present occurrence.

In a nearby cell, some mage screamed and thrust into the doors of his cell as if convinced they were actually capable to tear them down to ashes. A couple of hurried steps, marked by the rhythmic clinking of armored boots, revealed two or three Templars zooming to the place to put the poor soul to their final rest.

Only, things didn't seem to unfold as usual. After a while, the clanking of steel and the noise of doors knocked wide open, the shouts of encouragement and the yelps of pain had all ceased, but not followed by the usual neat rhythmic noise of trained armored boots falling back in pace; in fact, followed by nothing but silence. For a few moments, Wynne listened carefully. After a waiting that didn't seem to shed more light on the incident, she leaned onto one of the stone walls of her cell and begun her meditation for the day.

When she was awakened by shouts at her door, it seemed that not even an entire hour had passed. She got up quite annoyed; this was not even a meal-day, to make the disturbance worth it. However, the people out in the corridor were calling her by her name, and that fact alone was enough to draw her attention. Not to mention that one of their voices sounded conspicuously familiar; although, the thought that the boy who was ex-Templar, ex-Warden and the current King of Ferelden was trotting merrily on the corridors of Aeonar's dungeons was amusingly outlandish in itself. Perhaps her ears were playing tricks on her.

"We have to get you out" one of the voices said. "There is a blood mage on the loose."

Ah.

"They can cast?" she inquired casually through the door. How, she wondered. One could draw energy to cast from the wisps and spirits, but that only worked in the Fade. In Aeonar, the wards were aimed at blood magic as well as ordinary spells. Unless they got supplied with blood from elsewhere, outside the fortress, channeling it through the Fade. Wynne wondered if such a thing was even possible. And if it was, what were the odds that a desperate blood mage trapped in Aeonar would be cast in the same dream with a helpless being from Maker knew where?

"Stand aside," a woman's voice cried, and the minute next the door to Wynne's cell was banged open.

Oh, really. The antics these young people put up with... The small room was filled with them. There was a blonde, tall warrior – no, her hair was actually white as Wynne's – and why didn't she wonder that Anders, the rogue boy from the Tower, was here? He was clad in leathers, his hair dyed in a conspicuous shade of grey, and he sported a mean-looking sword on his back, which Wynne could wager that he couldn't swing for his life. It didn't make it difficult to recognize him, in spite of the effort. Also –

"Alistair? What in the world are you doing here?"

"Doing a tour of my kingdom, of course. Checking if everything is in good order – which, obviously, is not the case." He gestured towards the corridor, where the gruesome sight of four fallen Templars ripped apart by what appeared to be a kinetic explosion led the path towards a cell further down, the door of which precariously hung on the bottom hinge promising to fall.

"Oh. That is – uncanny. Do you have any idea how they did it?"

"No."

"And why in the world are you letting me out for? It is going to endanger your relations with the Templars and the Chantry."

"No, it's not. And, anyway, who's to say that your door hasn't been opened by that?" Alistair pointed at the mayhem in the corridor.

A sinister screeching sound cut Wynne's answer short.

"Alright, let's go," said the white-haired woman, already strolling down the corridor.

Alistair bared his sword and got his shield ready. The magelights ahead were flickering and a steaming purple mush was rising ankle-high on the floor. There was no telling whether the wailing, swishing noise came from the Keening Blade that Alistair yielded, or from the surroundings; the dripping one surely wasn't coming from the sword. The corridor seemed deserted, however, except for the occasional limb or piece of gut splayed against the stone walls and floors. They crossed it at pace, taking first a right turn, then a left, as they followed the white-haired warrior. They seemed quite properly lost in Wynne's opinion, but she kept it to herself. Obviously the Templar boy had a way of finding people to lead him and this was not a trait that would recommend one as king, but she would pursue the matter later. Then, the screeching came again.

"What on Thedas is that?" the woman asked with a frown.

"That, milady, would be an a-boni-mini-bimi-rumination. An abomination." Andres mock-stuttered in reply, getting his staff out from behind the greatsword on his back, which had obviously served only to conceal it.

"Or five," Alistair confirmed grimly.

Then, the things were all on them. Surging from the corruption on the walls, weaving their contorted, elongated bodies above the bloody mass of limbs and gore that covered the floors, bound together by will only, spitting a glut of fire that lasted as far as the eye could follow. The girl barged ahead with a war cry, cleaving left and right with her greatsword.

"Is she mad?" Wynne asked wearily.

"Almost," came a hurried whisper from Alistair, before he ran forward to join her.

Which, of course, left Wynne behind, with Andres only as guard.

"Try to keep them still as much as possible," she advised absentmindedly, as she was evaluating the battlefield.

Other than muttering a "Yes, grandma" the young mage showed enough discipline, and even more strength of will. Spells cascaded off his fingers in a hurry and with great exaction; it was good that one of the young knew the importance and efficiency of lesser spells in a long battle, Wynne thought she'd tell him so later, as she patiently placed her glyphs – Warding ahead, near the warriors, Repulsion right in front, Paralyzing on one creature that was about to slip through the pincher of the blades. They all fought valiantly and the abominations fell one after the other. But -

It seemed that all and every of Aeonar's cells had spewed abominations, and grinding forward the long corridor ahead was taking a lifetime. One, two, three, ten, fifteen – after a while Wynne stopped counting the successful hits of the greatsword. After a bit more she could see its yielder no more. The glyphs had long worn off before she and Anders could step closer to where Alistair had been holding the ground; he'd fallen backwards in the much after desperately trying to protect himself from a leap that had skewered his shield. Behind him, more of the creatures lurked about. She launched a Stonefist that found its target as Andres splashed a Cone of Cold ahead, which he doubled with a Crushing Prison. Two shattered, one damaged, but melting back to action. She threw a Chain Lightning down the hall. It went down bouncing at least six times before flickering around the corner, showing how many of the foul things were there still. Without warriors to keep them at bay, the chances to get through were slim. Anders charged forward to meet one headfirst, giving Wynne the needed time to revive Alistair. She ran past him as he was gathering himself from the floor in haste.

"Can you use that, boy?" she asked Anders, pointing at the sword on his back.

"What?" he shouted back, busy with the Walking Bomb spell he was nesting between his palms.

"May I?"

Wynne didn't wait for an answer as she helped herself to the sword. She didn't have much strength left, barely enough to keep the Shimmering Shield up – but she did, and she charged ahead, with Anders well at her back. She knew she could last almost indefinitely behind the shield, but she couldn't afford to cast. She hadn't used this sort of knowledge a lot, but she remembered as if it had been hours before – the deep understanding that had been transmitted to her through Kallian's hand as she held it, while the Warden had held the ancient phial in the other. The deep understanding of how to use magic in place of strength, of how the ones that lasted longer were the victors, of how all victory seemed empty if one lasted too long. Freezing and bashing reached her from behind by the manner of sound, and the noise of a sword clattering against the wall from ahead encouraged her to advance. If only she'd last long enough to regain her strength and heal them.

She was encroached. She had dragged three on her tail, and four more of the foul things had advanced from the corridor on her right, flanking her. A greatsword was by no means a tool for defense, Wynne knew; it offered even less protection against fire. So she swiped and she swiped mindlessly at the creatures, merely trying to keep them at a convenient distance, until her head hurt and dizziness almost overwhelmed her. Her age may have been an advantage in regard to power of will, but swinging a greatsword was no trifle. As it was, the earth-shattering war cry came right on time.

Not that the view opened by the fallen abominations was in any way more sinister than what lay behind; not that the walls were covered in more blood than before; not even that the fact that the way was clean and empty, which would otherwise have proved encouraging, conveyed an ominous undescript feeling about it; but when Andres and Alistair finally cleaned the spot, Wynne was shaking, as if a much more malign presence had just passed through. She couldn't pin it, so she shrugged the feeling as she healed the boys. In a place like Aeonar one was bound to come within meeting distance with all sorts of foulness. If they could pass unnoticed, though, it mattered little.

"Have you felt that?" Not getting an answer, Alistair turned to Anders. "Have you?"

Anders shrugged.

"Where is Clarcie, by the way?" he persisted.

"I'm right here." She'd emerged unscathed from the entrance ahead. "It seems the elevator is beyond damaged. There's no way up through here."

The malevolent presence felt rather subdued, so Wynne occupied her thoughts with other matters.

"Alright, young lady, so where to?"

The warrior, Clarice, Alistair had called her, was not so certain.

"The only other way seemed to go down."

Grinding through was not something foreign to Wynne. Going down and up corridors as dismally adorned as one could expect, strafing along steep shafts full of brimstone dust and stinking of deep-fried meat, crawling between narrow walls that donned corruption as a defiantly worn, old disease, clinging to slippery stones and wiping cobwebs from one's eyes and brow with an equally fouled hand only added to it. After a while it became obvious to everybody – they were deep below the ancient fortress.

The smell of brimstone had become ever more pungent, if possible, and, judging by the reddish flickers that threw long, withering shadows on the walls, they were quickly closing to a lava pit. Hot steam sprung from the rock every now and then without warning, and Wynne had to keep casting healing spells against the unavoidable burns and blisters to keep them in check. The warriors suffered the most; at some point, Clarice's armor became so hot that Anders had to throw a Winter's Grasp on it to keep her from cooking inside it; her skin was still angry red at the wrists and neck, where it had touched the metal.

"Dragon!" Alistair whispered sharply, having just returned from ahead.

Clarice wiped her brow with the back of her hand, leaving a long smudge of dirt instead of sweat.

"You can't possibly think to engage it," Anders chimed in.

"Have you seen any other path? A detour? Crossroad? I'm thinking that dragon must get out now and then, though. We must sneak past."

Alistair snorted.

"Past, where? None of us can sneak well enough to scout the area."

"We must try," said Wynne. The idea wasn't without merit. "If required, I can keep it still for awhile."

Clarice threw her a look as if seeing her for the first time.

"Indeed. But the passage we're looking for is large enough for the beast to cross. It won't shelter us."

Wynne tried to explain patiently, as she'd used to do at the Circle when she'd encountered a particularly thick apprentice.

"It may as well be in the ceiling. I was thinking merely to hold the beast while we come back here if anything goes wrong, or if there's no path that we can use."

It earned her a dubious look and a shrug from the girl, but it seemed that they finally had their strategy.

Wynne approached the opening carefully. It was rather high up, and the cave it peaked in was enormous, a true dragon den, with patches of lava and steam springs all around the floor and with magnificent formations throughout the ceiling, which, of course, ended with a funnel straight up. Well, it wasn't her task to assess the place; Wynne silently prepared a Paralysis glyph, which she placed carefully close to the creature's shoulder, careful not to disturb it at all. The Paralysis glyph only could do little to a high dragon; but, combined with a glyph of Repulsion, it could do lock the creature in place just enough for her to conjure a proper storm. Too bad that Anders wasn't as skilled as Morrigan with ice magic; a blizzard would have come terribly handy.

Alistair was to play the scout; Anders had to switch boots with him. He did so with a grunt, as the king's mail boots didn't fit him properly, and he joined Wynne at her vantage point.

Alistair lowered himself slowly on the cave wall. He got out of sight at some point, but nothing of a more worrying nature seemed to happen, so they kept to themselves, waiting in the quiet.

"What is that?" Andres whispered at some point, gesturing aside, towards a piece of rock that seemed conspicuously chiseled in the shape of a door.

"It looks dwarven," Wynne whispered back, "and closed."

"Shouldn't we try and get a better look?" he asked, and took off.

"Andres, wait," Clarice snapped, but Anders had already gotten to the door.

He was struggling with something that looked like a stuck lever when Alistair stepped noisily right in the middle of the room, waiving his hands and shouting without any concern for sound:

"Get back, get back!"

Then several things happened at once. Anders managed to pull the lever, which opened the stone door with a horrendous shriek; the high dragon stood up and roared, with a beat of wings; Clarice darted forward, ready to descend, and Wynne cast a Force Field that stopped her right on the edge.

"Come then," Anders called from behind.

Wynne prayed that Alistair had gotten away in time when she cast her glyph on the high dragon, which froze on the spot. Then she begun enchanting right away, knowing that conjuring a storm took time; so there was none to be lost. Clarice broke the Force Field rather quickly and was about to jump, when Alistair emerged from down under.

"Sorry, my lady." He barged at her, taking her off her feet. She grunted, scrambling back up.

"Here, here…" Anders was shouting, holding the door.

The storm finally burst from Wynne's palms and took off, in the exact moment when the creature started to stomp around, free from spell. Right before slipping through the door, Wynne got a glimpse of what exactly it was stomping upon – a huge, grey, hollering mass of darkspawn.

xxx

"That was rather embarrassing, wasn't it?" The girl was measuring Wynne and Alistair reproachfully as she was catching her breath.

"Reckless, rather, from your part" Wynne retorted.

"I was just – trying to defend him."

"So, what gave me up?" Alistair said.

"What gave what up?"

Obviously, the girl didn't know Alistair well enough to expect his swift bouts of anger, nor his sideways manner of making his anger known.

"You know, me, entertaining the notion that I'd like us to see who eats who, in there?"

"It's not like that, is it? You can't expect me to sit and watch you die, my King."

"Yes, that's very practical of you, mind, especially when said King is heroically running his boots off in the other direction, trying to avoid the mayhem you are throwing yourself at… Speaking of boots, Anders…"

Alistair threw the discarded items unceremoniously towards the mage, who likewise threw the chainmail ones back.

"By all means, your Majesty. They chafe."

"You'd better learn to work with the fact that people are trying to protect you. It will happen all the time from now. Learn to expect it."

"And – and you, you'd better learn not to… - to run in the wrong direction!"