Silfee couldn't stop shuddering. Broodmother. That thing had been a dwarf. That thing had been a woman. That thing had been a mother.
She could still feel its tentacles, those slime wrapped muscles, gripping, suctioning, contracting all around her body.
She wished Edgar were there. He would know what to do, what to say. Motherhood was an awful circumstance with blood and agony that ended with the child being torn away from the mother, but that creature... Silfee was shaking. Wynne placed a hand on her shoulder.
The way it had screamed, she couldn't stop thinking about its scream. What had it wanted? They had killed so many of its children, outside and beyond the reach of its tentacles. It wasn't hungry, it was heartbroken. How does one protect its child when its wrenched far away from the safety of your arms? Maybe it just wanted them to understand. Silfee so desperately wished she could tell it that she did understand. She understood the blood, the pain, the despair. When Silfee closed her eyes, she could feel the pulsing grip of those mottled pink tentacles as they dragged her across the rock toward the Broodmother, she could see its shining black eyes and foaming mouth and hear it shriek.
Too familiar. It was all too familiar. She wanted to bathe it away and forget everything.
"Really, Wynne," Silfee said. "I'm quite alright."
Then rock and hardness and she was swept off her feet and driven into the ground.
Silfee found herself staring face to face with Shale. Shale, the one who had crushed the tentacles into bloody pulp. If it had been any other foe, Silfee may have been offended that someone more attractive hadn't been the one to save her. Shale had saved her from the Broodmother and now, from the collapsing rock doorway. It would seem that it was incredibly useful to have a golem among their friends.
Silfee blinked hard. Think of poetry. Think of dancing. Think of parties with silk dresses adorned with ruffles. If she could just push it from her mind and focus on the surface details, she could function.
Not Duncan's headless corpse, not Cailan's deflated chest, not Father clutching his bloodied belly, not Oriana, not Oren.
Good. It was good to be nobility. What would the Tevinters think of this particular story? There would be certain facts that Silfee would embellish, of course, or play down, but it would be an acceptable read if she and Edgar were victorious in the end and reunited with Fergus, wouldn't it?
The golem hoisted her to her feet and Silfee giggled lightly as she brushed herself off. The fools weren't paying attention.
"Branka? By the Stone! I barely recognized you!" Oghren sounded a little too happy, considering they had just been trapped in a forgotten passage of the Deep Roads.
"Oghren." The husky voiced dwarven woman wasn't what Silfee would call handsome. Branka stood high on a jutting overpass, removed from the passageway they were being funneled down. "It figures you'd eventually find your way here. Hopefully, you can find your way back more easily."
Branka gestured a hand to them. If this was an example of dwarven manners, it was no wonder that they couldn't raise themselves beyond merchants on the surface. "And how shall I address you?" she asked. "Hired sword of the latest lordling to come looking for me? Or just the only one who didn't mind Oghren's ale breath?"
"Be respectful, woman!" Oghren jabbed a thumb in Nema's direction. "You're talking to a Grey Warden!"
And so they argued. It wasn't a climactic reunion of star-crossed lovers and it lacked the electric spark of sexual energy that would make Silfee's toes curl at night while she eagerly flipped the pages of her Orlesian novels. Oghren and Branka were so gruff and terse it was difficult to pinpoint whatever love they had had that prompted their marriage in the first place.
It almost made Silfee want to hug Oghren. Almost. One look from those eyes, drunk with rage and one whiff of the dried sweat on his steel armor made her reconsider. Still, Branka was a horrible wretch of a woman who sacrificed her entire house for an artifact and even Oghren with his filth and ill demeanor, deserved better.
Since they had slain Branka's never ending supply of darkspawn, they were to test themselves against the traps that the Paragon Caradin had laid out to guard the Anvil of the Void. Now, this was certainly something contrived enough for the mind of an Orlesian author. Just how had Branka made that doorway collapse, anyhow? What was the mechanism she had used? None of Silfee's companions seemed very interested in her musings, only that their exit had been cut off and the remaining path was littered with the bodies of darkspawn and Oghren's kin.
Leliana volunteered to take point and she quietly hummed a hymn as her deft fingers worked to disable tripwires and pressure plate traps. The Chantry sister was quite the oddity that Silfee took an absolute delight in. With copper colored hair and skin like fresh cream, she was more beautiful than any chaste sister had a right to be. Silfee wondered if Leliana was affirmed. The Maker did have a sense of humor, after all.
Looks aside, however, Leliana had a particularly dastardly set of skills. That a woman who claimed to be a devout servant of the Maker himself, could pick locks, disable traps and pick pockets was something Silfee found very intriguing.
The traps left by Caridin were more elaborate than the petty attempts made by the degenerates back in Dust Town. Leliana could undo a tripwire, yes, but she lacked a control rod for the attacking golems and couldn't reach the mechanism that was leaking poison gas into their passageway. Shale didn't seem to care. It appeared to be immune to the gas and as such, attacked its brethren with its usual gusto. Fortunately, Wynne was there to envelop them all in the blue aura that she willed. It limited their battle space, certainly, but Silfee was willing to concede that it was better to breathe than to be able to make use of the full breadth of her sword arm.
Perhaps Silfee's plan of attack was a bit unfair, but she had a clear understanding of just what Shale could do with its fists. The golems they faced were much larger than Shale and rock could chip her blade. So Silfee ducked and taunted and dodged while Shale pummeled the other golems and Nema called magic to her fingers.
Oghren, Alistair and Leliana appeared to not share Silfee's aversion to the golems. Then again, they hadn't been nearly dragged to their deaths as Silfee had. Maker, there was a large gouge in her leg where her calf had scraped against a rock as she had been pulled toward the Broodmother's open maw. That didn't mean she was tainted, did it? She hadn't come in contact with a darkspawn weapon or blood, it was just dirt and stone in her wound. She wouldn't get ill and waste away and descend into madness, would she?
The golems were strong, but Alistair possessed a speed they lacked. He ran circles round them and would knock them off balance with his shield so that Shale or one of the others could finish them off. Perhaps Caridin never anticipated surface mages to have an interest in his anvil.
The final golem's head made a popping noise as Nema set it alight as easily as if it were charcoal. Blue light from Wynne's magic danced across the stone glyphs on the now silent hallway. As they made their way out and the clouds of murky green poison cleared, Wynne once again placed her hand on Silfee's shoulder.
"Wynne." Silfee laughed away the shivers in her spine. "I already told you, I'm quite alright."
Wynne had that warm smile that she so often used. Odd, that she wasn't looking at Silfee while she spoke. "So you said," the mage muttered just as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she toppled over backward.
"Wynne!" Alistair was immediately at the old woman's side. He hoisted her up into his arms and gave her cheek a few pats with a soft hand.
Wynne blinked rapidly and hard until her eyes could focus on his face. "Oh," she murmured. "I fell."
"All this excitement is too much for your old bones?" Alistair chided. "No, seriously, stunts like that have the tendency to frighten me and I look hideous when I cry."
"For a moment there I thought I was... I thought it was all over."
"Not at all," Alistair said. "We've still got a ways to go to reach the Anvil- wait. What?"
Wynne exhaled. "Everything."
Clever. Silfee would have to remember that. It would be a scream to recite that the next time she inevitably fainted at a party. Too tight corsets were close enough to near-death experiences for the majority of the coddled nobility. Wouldn't that be lovely? A costumed ball with a banquet dinner and music?
Wynne smiled up at Alistair and gently, almost motherly, tucked the fluff of a sideburn back behind his ear. He was due for a trim, what with all their marauding through the Deep Roads interrupting mundane things such as haircuts.
"I will explain everything when we are back at camp," Wynne promised. "Now is not the time."
"Right," Alistair said. He didn't sound convinced, but he helped her to her feet.
The ceiling of the hall was dotted with the blue of lyrium ore and as they passed a final archway the space expanded to an open clearing. Golems stood in frozen, rapt attention in lines and ranks that led up to one massive golem. The king of golems, Silfee thought wryly.
The golem turned and nodded its head at them in greeting. Silfee may have gasped, but she sorely hoped that no one had noticed.
"My name is Caridin," the massive golem said. "Once, longer ago than I care to think, I was a paragon to the dwarves of Orzammar."
"Caridin?" Shale asked. It stepped forward, almost hesitant. "The paragon smith? Alive?"
"There is a voice I recognize!" The warmth in Caridin's voice struck Silfee as bizarre. Not that she had much experience with golems, but weren't they constructs? These two now sounded as if they had genuine emotion. "Shale of House Cadash, step forward."
Shale paused. "You know my name?" It took a single step forward. "Is it you that forged me, then?" It took another step, then another. "Is it you that gave me my name?"
"Have you forgotten, then?" Caridin asked. "It has been so long. I made you into the golem you are now, Shale, but before that you were a dwarf, just as I was. The finest warrior to serve King Valtor and the only woman to volunteer."
"The only... woman?" Shale sounded incredulous, which was fitting, given that Silfee was fairly certain that her own jaw had dropped low enough to hit the ground. "A dwarf?"
Perhaps it was better that Shale couldn't remember her previous life. Silfee found all her attempts to imagine Shale as a dwarven woman to be pure, unadulterated madness.
"I laid you on the Anvil of the Void in this very room," Caridin said. "I put you into the form you now possess."
"The Anvil of the Void," Shale murmured. "That is what we seek."
Caridin stared at them all. Almost rudely, though it may have simply been the way the smiths had fashioned his eyes. "If you seek the Anvil, then you must care about my story," he said. "Or be doomed to relive it."
And so he regaled them with his tale of how the Anvil of the Void came to be. Golems were so powerful because they were stone forged from blood, everything came with a price. Shale had once been a woman, but Caridin had burned away her flesh and stripped her humanity. Shale appeared to physically shudder at the mention of her being mortal, of being soft of being a "her" instead of an "it."
But Shale had been a volunteer. She had willingly submitted to the Anvil's hammer. She wasn't casteless or a prisoner or a political adversary of the king. Her free will wasn't broken by some king's control rod. It was upsetting for Silfee to admit that such a political boon had ties with blood magic and dark arts. The Anvil of the Void was a slur against the Maker himself.
"My apprentices knew enough to make me as I am," Caridin said. "But not enough to fashion a control rod. I retained my mind. We have remained entombed here ever since and I have sought a way to destroy the Anvil. Alas, I cannot do it myself. No golem can touch it."
Nema wanted it. Of course she did, it made sense. Silfee savored the moment she gave herself to fantasize about an army of golems. It would be glorious to watch them storm Ferelden and break through the lines of darkspawn. She could imagine them as they swarmed over Highever and crushed Rendon Howe in her name.
There was a certain, inky attraction to it. But she was her mother's daughter and Teyrna Eleanor Cousland knew the importance of raising her children in the faith, the importance of her children being strong enough to bear both shame and guilt.
Everyone else was in favor of destroying the Anvil. Shale just wanted whatever Caridin did and Oghren just wanted his wife.
Nema dealt with it in the same fashion that she dealt with anything that didn't go her way. When she realized she couldn't push and badger and demand everyone into acquiescing to what she wanted, she grew eerily quiet with that remorseless, frozen fury to her expressionless face. Silfee was sure the elf was cataloging every injustice, every slight in the back of her mind so that when she sought vengeance later, she would know precisely how hard to strike. Nema Surana would be a dangerous foe, if anyone were foolish enough to grant her power.
"No!" The manic voice lanced over the quiet as Branka charged toward them. How had she not succumbed to the poison? "The Anvil is mine! No one will take it from me!" She stopped in front of Caridin, a rod clenched in her fist.
"You!" Was all Caridin got out, before she waved the rod in her hand and activated his fellow golems.
It would seem that Branka did not have a clear understanding of diplomacy. Or even of golems that had been dormant for centuries. The creatures went mad and struck out at her, they lashed out at Silfee and her friends, even at each other. Such a shame, really.
Silfee was once again diving and scrambling away from the blows of golems while Branka and her companions dealt them damage. The more Silfee twisted and skirted away from stone fists, the more she realized how cross she was at Edgar. He was probably laughing and drinking wine with Arl Eamon in Redcliffe, by now. Arlessa Isolde had always been a lovely host, if her memory was correct.
Branka swung her mace at Oghren and he flipped his axe around in his hands so that he could smash the blunt handle of his weapon across the bridge of her nose.
"You mad, bleeding nug tail," he barked. "Does this thing mean so much to you that you can't even see what you've lost to get it?"
So that was dwarven romance. It occurred to Silfee that there was a new, completely untapped genre. She had never read a romance novel penned from Orzammar. She would have to mention that to the next merchant they came across, maybe Bodahn would know something about that, being a dwarf.
As everyone focused on disabling the golems, Branka and Oghren continued to deliver non-lethal blows to each other as they screamed and bickered.
"Is this what our empire should look like?" Branka demanded. "A crumbling tunnel filled with darkspawn spume?"
"Don't throw your life away for this!" Oghren whipped his axe back around so that the blade faced his wife. His stance was solid, but his eyes wavered.
Branka spat on the ground and wound her mace back behind her. As she dove for him, she was caught in midair by Caridin's powerful grip and he squeezed with his massive hands, squeezed until bone cracked and wheezing air and life was forced from her mouth with a gasp. Oghren stood unmoving, not attacking, not defending. Caridin laid Branka's still form gently onto the stone ground.
Oghren didn't go near Branka's corpse, but he kept muttering beneath his breath. The only thing Silfee could identify was the phrase, "stupid woman," over and over again.
"Another life lost because of my invention," Caridin said. "I wish no mention of it had made it into history."
"There's still the matter of the election," Oghren said. His eyes were already on the exit where Branka had appeared from. "I mean, we still need a paragon to get the Assembly's support, right?"
Caridin nodded. "For the aid you've given me, I shall put hammer to steel one last time and give you a crown for the king of your choice."
And so they sat and watched as the paragon smith, Caridin, bent steel to his will. Steam rose from the magma pits beside the Anvil of the Void as the giant golem used a mallet as though it were a tiny hammer. Shale wandered away to stare intently at some runes on the wall as Caridin finished his handiwork.
It was nothing that Silfee would ever want to place atop her head. The craftsmanship was impeccable. It gleamed golden and had the intricate crest of Caridin's house etched inside it and would be well suited for any king of Orzammar. But it was large and bulky and Silfee's neck was too delicate to support such a heavy burden.
As soon as Caridin finished his final boon, Nema refused to destroy the Anvil.
"I can't in good conscience destroy something that could be so useful," was all she would say. She crossed her arms tightly and dared anyone to disagree.
"I understand," Silfee said. She offered the other woman a courteous nod of her head and then took Alistair, sputtering with indignation, by the arm. "We would never ask you to do something you disagreed with."
Silfee then led Alistair up the Anvil and together they raised their weapons. Discussion and banter and even arguments were all well and good in the necessary time and place. But sometimes people mistook inaction and floundering for civility. She wondered what Nema must have been thinking, but then cast it aside in favor for how amusing it was that in standing in front of a fount of magma, it made it look as though steam was pouring out of Nema's ears.
For something so powerful and dangerous, the Anvil of the Void broke to pieces with an almost careless ease. It chipped and crumbled, and Silfee even managed to find a smooth piece of the horn with a pretty rune engraved upon it that she could pocket to show Edgar.
With the Anvil destroyed, Caridin claimed that he had lived too long and stepped into the magma. Shale was still quite taken with the wall. "Shale of House Cadash," she murmured as her finger traced the writing.
"Would you like to go there?" Wynne asked. "We can go now."
Shale was silent for a long time. "No," she said, finally. "The only one who knew my former life is gone now. The only thing I would find is bones and ruins."
"If you are certain," Wynne said. The old woman placed a hand on Shale's arm.
"Thank you," was all the golem would say.
"You ready to head back yet and share the news?" Oghren called from the doorway.
Nema marched over to join him, her nose in the air. "Yes."