72. Shadows in Dreams

The archdemon's song keened to him, as it did to all of them when they slept. Years' worth of drills on how to protect his mind while sleeping went up in so much Tainted smoke when the dragon whispered its demands in a language he couldn't understand. Its presence was oily and unpleasant, clinging to his soul even as he tried to retreat from it.

He saw the dragon flying through a great canyon, bathed in red light and listening to the growls of hundreds… thousands of its followers below. The archdemon roared, and he shuddered and resisted its insidious pull. His blood burned.

And then, there was a pull from another direction—from somewhere else—and a sensation of being tugged through a curtain and doused in cold, purifying water.

Kazar gasped and opened is eyes to see a generic Fade landscape around him. He was sitting under a ruined stone structure, the Fade's twisted flora a familiar sight around him.

He sighed and leaned back against the cracked wall behind him, waiting for the burning ache in his blood to abate. Darkspawn dreams always did that, and it wasn't a sensation he liked, because it wasn't something he could fight against.

Not that the Fade was much better lately.

He could sense them, lurking just outside the blurry edges of his awareness. They whispered in voices made of oil and sin, their dark forms flitting around just at the corners of his eyes, but gone when he turned his head.

He tried to keep his shields up. He needed to defend against them, but between this and the darkspawn dreams, he was just too tired to last much longer. Blast it, why had he thought blood magic was a good idea?

And just what had pulled him here, out of the archdemon dream anyway?

He heard something skitter behind him on tiny claws, and Kazar jumped to his feet at the sound. He whirled and shot off a fireball without thinking, and it slammed ineffectually into a ruined wall and dissipated. The voices at the edge of his awareness tittered.

Kazar gripped his magic around him like a lifeline, casting around for the source of that skittering sound. He was here. That had to be why he'd been pulled into the Fade… what else could possibly be strong enough to break the enthrallment of an archdemon?

By the Veil, he needed to wake up. Why couldn't he just wake up?

There was another sound to his right—the shifting of pebbles—and Kazar shot a burst of ice that froze a hundred-degree arc around him in place. He panted now, his breath misting in the bitter cold in the air.

But this was the Fade; it shouldn't have air. The thought crossed his mind that Felicity or Wynne might have been able to explain that. They might have been able to help. But he didn't dare go to them, because then they'd know.

They'd know about his mistake; his moment of weakness. They'd know that he was more frightened by the shadows in his dreams than anything else in his life. The archdemon was a threat that could be taken down with swords and spells… this was not. This was an insidious encroaching, whispers weakening his mind until he could only yield out of sheer exhaustion. The Fade was a land of willpower, and Kazar had always thought himself as having plenty of that.

Bluster, all of it. As the shadows at the edges of his mind closed in, he could feel himself bending under their weight. The only thing that kept them out was his fear of what giving in would make him become.

The whispers had a response to that thought, promising power and sex and blood and anything else he might desire, and his knees buckled under the weight of his own indecision. He covered his ears with his hands, even though he knew that did nothing to ease the pressure on his mind.

"This isn't real," he whispered. "If I don't let you in, you can't touch me."

A low, rumbling laugh somewhere in the fog behind him had Kazar leaping to his feet and spinning around. He launched a torrent of lightning in that direction, pouring all his terror into the maelstrom. The broad, towering shadow on the edge of the Fade disappeared, blinking out as if it had never been, and the whispers abruptly stopped.

Kazar released the spell, panting. His nerves were frayed, ready to twitch into action at the slightest sound. But all was silence, the demonic presences he'd felt around him dissipated like so much smoke.

Was this a reprieve? Or a trick? He couldn't trust his own perceptions here. Just because the threat seemed gone didn't mean it was.

"You learn your lessons well, Mage," a voice drawled in his ear, and Kazar's heart stuttered to a stop. He hadn't even been aware of the rodent perched on his shoulder. Had he been there this entire time? "It will make victory all the sweeter when you finally yield to me." And then, Mouse laughed, his voice growing low and demonic. Kazar felt it wrapping around him, making the air heavy and black.

He screamed and threw his magic wide in an electric burst all around him, only to bolt upright in bed, his form still lighting up the tent with the lightning flitting around his form.

"…ow."

Kazar yelped and spun, the lightning around him sparking, only to see a ruffled-looking Percival Cousland squinting at him from his bedroll. The nobleman was rubbing his shoulder.

The tent flap opened, and a dog and a dwarf both poked their heads in. Hugo immediately crossed to Percy, snuffling about his master's form.

"Is everything all right?" Marnan asked. "I heard lightning being cast."

Kazar realized he was still sparking, and snuffed the last of his spell. The tent went dark. "It's fine," he said stiffly. "Just a bad dream."

"The archdemon?"

"…yeah."

Percy's sigh filled the tent. "I as well. I can't say I'm sorry you woke me, Kazar."

In the darkness, Kazar could see the dwarf's silhouette turning toward the nobleman. "Were you hit? Should I go wake Felicity?"

"It's fine. Just a bit of a shock."

"Is this normal, Kazar? Casting in your sleep? Do we need to worry about separating you during camp?"

"Percy said it was fine, so it's fine," Kazar snapped. He stood up and shoved past the dwarf out into the night. It was cloudy and dark, the only light a low campfire between the two tents. Somewhere beyond their camp, off in the darkness, was Morrigan's tent, always separated. Maybe she had the right idea of it.

Kazar crouched next to the fire and heard Marnan walk up behind him. He didn't bother hiding his scowl.

"I apologize if what I said was ignorant. I just don't want undue harm to come to anyone."

"Because I'm too dangerous to let around other people, right?"

In the low light, Kazar could see her puzzled frown. "That is not what I said."

"It might as well have been." By the Fade, he missed Fin and Meila. Marnan just didn't get him. None of them did.

At the same time, he was glad the other elves weren't here. They'd just know. Or Fin would wheedle it out of him, at least.

"Kazar."

"Go to bed, Marnan. I'll take watch."

"I don't know that I should leave you in this agitated state."

Kazar laughed, and it sounded bitter even to himself. "Don't you know? I'm always agitated. Go. It's fine."

She sighed, but nodded and turned to duck into the girls' tent. Kazar heard Amell's voice raised in a sleepy question, but Marnan's short answer seemed to satisfy the nosy twit, because he heard nothing more from that tent.

Kazar sat beside the campfire, finally letting himself hug his knees to his chest now that he was out of sight of everyone. His nerves were on end, every shift of the wind and rustle of leaves making him twitch. He kept expecting to see a pair of beady eyes glinting from underneath the bushes at the edge of camp.

It was all from his nightmares, but that didn't mean it wasn't terrifyingly real.