He felt too angry to even see straight, but his feet found their way back to Darktown almost by instinct. He stomped angrily down the stairs towards the rickety elevator that would lower him to the clinic level. He stood and fumed through the slow passage downwards as the wooden platform swayed slightly, his grip on the haft of his staff white-knuckled as he glowered at nothing. The two other occupants of the lift eyed him warily and shuffled as far away from him as the small wooden platform would allow as he muttered angrily to himself. He barely waited for it to settle at the bottom of the shaft before leaping off and striding through the fetid-smelling passages of the subterranean shanty town.

He heard someone call out his name, but he strode on, ignoring them. He was in no mood to talk to anyone right now. All the anger and frustration he'd kept bottled up inside since losing his magic had finally boiled over, and he was in a towering fury at the unfairness of it all.

Fenris' repeated use of the word "mage" nearly every time he addressed Anders without thinking was like a knife to his gut, twisting in the festering wound that was his pain over losing such a central, defining part of himself - a constant reminder of what he was no longer. He had been hated and reviled from childhood for the accident of birth that made him a mage, but though he had always bitterly resented his treatment at the hands of others and suffered for what he was, he had never once thought of magic as a curse as some mages did.

Some might have been glad to have such a burden lifted from them without the deadening effect of Tranquility, but Anders was not such a one. Magic was a gift; he had revelled in it, the exhilarating feeling of mana flowing through his veins like quicksilver, an electrifying sensation through his body, pinpricking across his skin as lightning danced across his fingers or mana pooled in his hands like cool smoke, quiescent and awaiting his will - to be channelled into healing or shaped into fire, ice, any number of things he so wished, raw power tamed to his thoughts, words, gestures. It had filled him; he lived and breathed it like the air itself. He had never been without the touch of healing spirits about him, drawn to his magic.

And now it was gone, along with his eye; an empty void within him that could not be filled with staff-fighting lessons or alchemy, glasses of wine or the touch of friends around a table. Camaraderie of his companions could not compensate for the loss of Justice within, ripped away from him. None of them could understand the way he felt only half-alive inside. He had earned anew the right to fight alongside Hawke and the others, had proven himself still a capable companion with value and skills - but that could not fill the cold, silent space inside where once certainty and life had resided.

He had lost an eye along with his magic and Justice - and he would have gladly given his other eye to have his magic back, to hear Justice's voice once more or feel the spirit's fierce determination driving him again. He had a purpose again with Hawke, but no direction.

And that damnable elf had thrown it in his face with that one word that encompassed all that he was not! How dare he? Anders had been slowly coming to tolerate, maybe even tentatively like Fenris now they no longer seemed to be at each other's throats all the time. He'd even come to look forward to the elf's arrival at the clinic each morning. He'd been slowly coming to trust him - and then Fenris had to go and call him that and remind him once more of all he had lost with but one word. How dare he? How dare he?

He dashed away the angry tears that threatened to blur his vision as he stomped furiously through the ever-present muck and dirt towards his clinic, and nearly knocked over someone standing in front of the clinic doors. He jerked his head up with a furious scowl; it took a moment for the flaming sword insignia on the front of the armed man's steel chestplate to register.

"Here he is - it's the apostate!" exclaimed the templar as he reached to grasp Anders' arm.

Once, the sight of four templars lying in wait for him outside his clinic would have had him fleeing in fear; but in his fury, Anders only saw four handy targets to take his rage out on and no reason to hold back. What was the threat of Tranquility to him now? He could have laughed. Instead, he wrenched his arm out of the startled templar's grasp and spun his staff forward, brandishing it in front of him.

"Come on then!" he cried. "I'm ready for you!"

One of the templars gestured, and Anders recognised the attempt to cast a Smite. He did laugh then, the templars exchanging worried glances as it had no effect. He launched himself at the nearest templar with a snarl.

The templars were slow; they had expected a frightened mage, easily overpowered with a Smite - not a furious one-eyed warrior wielding a long polearm who obviously knew what he was doing. As the first templar fell, one of the templars frantically cast another Smite, and another - none of them having any effect as the enraged blond man laid into the other two templars. First one, and then the other fell in a spray of blood that drenched the front of Anders' gambeson and splashed across his face, lending his visage an almost demonic air as he whirled to face the last templar with a howl of rage.

The last templar was hastily pouring something from a small green bottle on the blade of his sword, and as Anders lunged towards him the templar managed to bring his blade up beneath Anders' swing to slice into the blond man's shoulder. Anders growled as he felt the blade bite into his flesh; the cut was shallow, but it stang. Magebane, he guessed.

The templar evidently had expected the magebane to drop Anders where he stood. Instead, it only served to enrage him still further; with an inhuman howl of fury he laid into the last templar until finally he was the only one still breathing. He stood there, panting raggedly and covered in blood as he cast around for another enemy to strike down, but he was the only one still living. He planted the blade of his staff into the dirt and leaned on it, feeling the adrenaline slowly drain from his body, leaving him feeling cold and sick to his stomach as he stared at the carnage his fury had wrought.

He shuddered and staggered away from the dismembered bodies in steel plate and red robes, sodden in blood, and fell heavily against the wall before spewing up the wine he had drunk earlier.

After a few minutes in which he fought to quell his rebellious stomach and bring his breathing back to something approaching normal, he managed to push himself upright and stagger the few feet to the clinic doors. Unlocking them, he thrust his staff inside then staggered over to the nearest body. Gritting his teeth, he dragged the bloody corpse over to the nearest pit shaft and hurled it over before going back for another.

By the time he'd managed to dispose of the bodies of all four templars and assorted dismembered limbs, he was aware of some of the Darktown denizens creeping back slowly, regarding him from the shadows warily as he staggered back towards the clinic doors.

"Healer? You alright?"

Anders squinted at the figure that emerged from the shadows; an elf.

"Tomwise?" he gasped raggedly.

"Creators, you look like shit, Anders," the elf said as he drew closer. "Come back to my place, let me fix you up."

"No, I can't, I -" Anders broke off, a thought occurring to him. "Tomwise... you deal in poisons, right? What can you tell me of felandaris?"

Tomwise blinked. "Now what in the Dread Wolf's name would a healer be wanting with felandaris?" He shook his head. "You come with me; we'll get you cleaned and fixed up, and you can tell me why you want to know about felandaris."

Anders thought for a moment, then nodded. he reached for his staff then shut and locked the clinic door and allowed the poison-maker to lead him back to his own ramshackle home.

Anders sat at the wooden table and held still as Tomwise cleaned the sword cut before dressing it with an elfroot poultice then bandaging it. Anders' hair was still damp, but at least it was clean now after a thorough wash and scrub. He tested his range of movement as Tomwise tidied his healing kit away; it was serviceable, and Tomwise had done a better job than Anders himself could have done alone.

"I'm guessing it'll take a while for the magebane to wear off so you can heal yourself," observed Tomwise as he lifted a small pot of stew off the fire and set it to one side before putting a kettle of water on to boil. The elf served a portion of stew into a wooden bowl then set it before Anders. "Eat up; Creators know, you look like you need it."

Anders shrugged his shoulders then winced as the movement pulled at the cut. "Magebane has no effect on me any more," he remarked as he stirred his spoon through the stew.

"Useful," remarked Tomwise. "Why's that then?"

"Not a mage anymore," said Anders before he began to eat. There was something ironically amusing about being able to trust a poisoner's food; Tomwise's cooking was probably the most edible sustenance in Darktown.

"Not a...!" Tomwise's eyes widened, and then he slowly nodded understanding. "I see. That explains what I've been hearing about the clinic. But... you're not Tranquil?"

"Not in the usual sense, no," answered Anders. "I may as well be though." Maybe it would hurt less if he were. Anders was beginning to understand better now the part of the Rite that stripped the emotions of the Tranquil away at the same time as severing their connection to the Fade. Not that he'd want such a fate for himself; he would sooner die than submit to that kind of half-life.

But was this half-dead existence, devoid of magic, really any better? He wrenched his thoughts away from such dark places. No. He was still alive, still breathing, capable of feeling, determining his existence for himself, painful though it might be. He was still of use, he still had valuable skills, he could still help and heal people.

"Of course you can," remarked Tomwise, and Anders coloured, not having realised he'd been muttering quietly aloud to himself. He glanced up at the elf, embarrassed, but the elf waved him off. "Ach, habit of those who live alone; I do it meself all the time," he smiled. "You should hear some of the arguments I have with meself when I spill or break something." He turned and started to brew two mugs of tea as the water boiled. "So, felandaris. What were you wantin' to know about it?"

Anders told him of the tainted lyrium between mouthfuls of stew, and Tomwise listened carefully as he set a mug of tea before Anders and sipped at his own. Anders was careful not to mention his own accidental ingestion of the poison. As Anders finally pushed the empty bowl away and took up his own mug, the elven poisoner nodded slowly.

"I'd say whoever brewed that was definitely aiming it at templars," he said slowly. "It'd make them very sick; likely strip 'em of their abilities, I don't doubt, and put 'em out of action for a long time. The effects would linger long afterwards as well; the orichalcum would bind to the lyrium already in their system and to whatever lyrium they took after it - short of going off the lyrium altogether, they'd have to wait a month or more for it to clear out of their system - and in the meantime they'd be sick as a dog and they certainly wouldn't be Smitin' anyone."

"And you can't just stop taking lyrium," nodded Anders.

"It's a perfect way of putting a whole Chantry of templars out of action for a month," agreed Tomwise. "Assuming you can sneak it into the Chantry in the first place. Switch their regular lyrium for this stuff and in twenty-four hours you won't have a single templar capable of stirring from his bed for puking. And the orichalcum with the lyrium would pass as normal and untainted; a Purify would have no effect on it - unlike if you tried sneaking anything into the templar's food. Probably a lot easier as well."

Anders nodded. "Intercept a normal lyrium delivery, switch the batches - and the templars will happily go off and poison themselves. They wouldn't notice the smell until they were drinking it - by which point it would be too late, and it would take too long to organise another shipment of lyrium in time before they started going into withdrawal." He tapped his lip thoughtfully. "Perfect way to stage the most effective Circle uprising in history and break every mage in the Gallows out." He had to admire the beauty of the plan. If he'd been more attentive to the poisons and antidotes part of his training he might even have thought of it himself.

He glanced up at Tomwise. "What would it do to a normal person - one not habituated to lyrium as the templars are, but not a mage either?"

"Probably kill 'em on the spot," shrugged Tomwise. "Lyrium's pretty toxic on its own, but add it to the felandaris and it'd be a very swift death. If a rather expensive one," he added.

Anders blinked. He felt like shit still, but he was certainly still alive. "What would it do to a mage?" he asked slowly.

"Haven't a clue, I'm afraid," shrugged Tomwise. "My wares and expertise are usually employed against rather more... mundane targets. You'd probably have to ask a Tevinter poisoner; I'm sure the Magisters are probably busy merrily poisoning each other all the time. I understand Tevinter politics is something of a cut-throat business."

Anders thought of Fenris then dismissed the notion of asking the white-haired elf. Fenris was a warrior who believed in facing his enemies head-on with his blade, not poisoning them; and besides, if the elf had known anything about such poisons then surely he would have spoken up sooner.

Anders got to his feet and reached for his shirt and gambeson. "Thank you for your help and your time, Tomwise," he said.

"Any time, healer," smiled Tomwise. "Oh, do let me know if you come up with anything particularly interesting in your alchemy experiments - I'm always on the look-out for interesting new reagents." He smiled.

"I'll bear that in mind," nodded Anders as he took his leave and headed back towards his clinic.