88. The Other Side of Blood Magic
Mouse was waiting for him.
"Amazing," the demon's voice rumbled in his ear. Purred, almost. "You are magnificent."
"They'll never understand," he whispered back into the darkness. "I had to do it. They were all dying."
"Then that is their failing, not yours." A hand ran through his hair, comforting. He wanted to shake it off, but he was just so tired. He was tired of fighting, and tired of making excuses to everyone. He was tired of hiding the horrible deal he'd made.
"Not horrible… a bit over-eager perhaps, learning the arts from Desire." There was amused contempt in the demon's low voice. "You needn't have dealt with that creature at all; I was more than willing to teach it all to you for free." It wrapped around him, like a stifling blanket, and he knew he should keep fighting it. But he could barely open his eyes even in the Fade, so what was the point?
Something took him in large arms and rocked him, and it was as comforting as anything would get, especially now that they knew. Did he have to keep his guard up, even here?
No! Damn it, the demon wasn't getting him like this.
Kazar forced his tired mental projection into wakefulness, shoving out of the demon's arms. He landed on the ground, weak, bruised, and sore in a way he'd never been before. Like he'd just overexerted a brand new muscle.
He opened his eyes to the Fade, forcing himself to pick himself up despite all weakness. Mouse sat before him—now in human form—watching him do it with a knowing smile.
"What?" Kazar snapped, in no mood to deal with this creature when things were going so poorly in the real world. Maker, they knew.
"You need not be so guarded against me, mage. You know I won't make a move until you will it so. Come, you need something to wind you down. Perhaps some sweets?" Mouse snapped his fingers, and a pair of dream-mice scurried into view, carrying a platter on their backs. Mouse removed the lid to reveal Orlesian cocoa-filled pastries—those had always been Kazar's favorite treats, on those rare occasions the apprentices were given them at the Circle Tower.
"A poor substitute, I admit, when you have access to the real thing," Mouse sighed. "But perhaps even the Fade mimicry will help settle your nerves about the battles before you."
Kazar's mouth watered just looking at the assortment, but he remained stubbornly standing. "You've been in my memories. You're already in my head, aren't you?"
"I admit, I've peeked. I couldn't help myself." Mouse flashed him an unapologetic smile and helped himself to one of the pastries. "You are such a fascinating creature, mage… obviously born to be great, but constantly tied down by those pathetic nothings that you consider friends."
"They won't be friends anymore. Not now that they know what I am." Kazar slumped to the ground. Mouse offered him a pastry in condolence. Against his better judgment, the elf took it.
"And that is their failing, not yours," Mouse repeated, taking a bite of his own confection. "What you said before is true; they'd all have died without your blood magic. And look how much it turned the battle! If you truly must think my kind's gifts are sacrifice, at least it is one that has proven well worth it."
Kazar swallowed, because the demon made sense. As little as he wanted to admit it, the demon's words were hitting a note of truth deep inside him.
"Only because I am right." Mouse sat back with a smirk. "The fact is that your mortal companions are unable to comprehend just how much potential you have. I, on the other hand, have seen your core, and I know just what you may be capable of, given the correct tools. I will give you those tools, when you let me in. Consider, mage, being capable of taking out that entire army in that Trench, singlehanded, no lyrium potions necessary. Imagine blasting the archdemon to pieces without ever having to draw it to the ground!"
Kazar took a careful nibble of the pastry in his hand. It was an imitation of the real world confection, but it tasted good all the same. "You would help me fight against darkspawn?"
Mouse laughed, and his voice briefly had the low rumble of his true form. "Why I most certainly would! If we were sharing your world, you and I, I would do everything in my power to ensure there was as much of it possible for me to enjoy! That most certainly involves stopping your Blight by any means necessary." He paused to take a bite of his pastry. "It would be poetic, don't you think? Darkspawn are creatures of our world, released in yours. Let them be destroyed by a similar being of both worlds… you and I, mage."
"I…" Kazar shook his head. "I'm not becoming an abomination! I refuse to be!"
"Pah, 'abomination' is such a pithy term. It is what weaklings who cannot handle the power turn into. It is the word for that Connor creature: those who fumble with the arts with no direction or true understanding of what power really is. You and I would be no abomination, mage. We would be a god."
Kazar shivered, enticed by the demon's words despite himself. More, they had been bound for a while now… long enough for Kazar to be able to sense that Mouse believed every word he was saying… there was no deception here. Pride did not need to deceive, not in something like this.
Mouse reached over, running a hand soothingly down his face. Kazar flinched, but did not slap it away. "You need not make your decision yet, mage. I have waited long, and I can wait longer still for a host as magnificent as you. Just know that I will be here, only a thought away, should you call."
Something was pulled at him, drawing him out of the Fade. He was waking up. As the Fade shimmered out around him, Kazar watched Mouse finish the last of his pastry.
"Be strong, mage," the demon's voice rumbled in his ear as it all disappeared. "And remember that you were right."
Blackness surrounded him, and he could feel himself being tugged toward the waking world like surfacing from a dive. The waters were cold, but he felt a lingering presence somewhere nearby that had not been there before… at least, not so overtly. He should have been terrified—and he was—but he also found comfort in it, and wasn't that all kinds of wrong?
He took his first breath of consciousness, and immediately regretted it. He ached everywhere, and he was too weak to even draw breath to complain. Horrible thirst parched his tongue, and he was cold everywhere, with hardly the strength to shiver.
"…be a couple more hours before she awakens," someone was saying nearby. "She took a good bit of damage when that ogre threw her. She was lucky to still be in bear form at the time, or she would likely have not survived the impact."
"Maker, was it really that close?" said another. Percival, Kazar realized. And the first voice was, of course, Felicity.
"If I didn't know better," Garott's low voice rumbled through a cough. "I'd say the little firecracker saved all our asses with his stunt."
"His stunt, Garott," Felicity snapped, "was blood magic."
"Oh, my mistake. His blood magic saved all our asses, then."
"Being saved by demons is not any respite at all," Percival said gravely. "They will call in their debts, sooner or later."
How poorly these people understand mine, an amused voice rumbled in the back of Kazar's head. Kazar squeaked in surprise at hearing Mouse speak in the waking world. Mouse really was inside him already! By the Fade, did that mean he was already an abomination, and hadn't realized it?
Mouse chuckled at the thought. No, mage. We are not yet one. Not until you choose to make it so… I will not join with you unless it's your choice. Of that, you have my word.
It shouldn't have been comforting, but strangely, it was.
"Elf? You awake, elf?" Garott's voice rumbled nearby, pulling his attention back outside. With some difficulty, Kazar forced his eyes open.
He was on a bedroll somewhere in the ruins of Bownammar, judging by the stonework on the walls. A couple pallets were scattered across the cramped little room, on which lay Morrigan, Marnan, and Sten. Felicity and Percival knelt next to the witch's bedroll, but Garott was now leaning over Kazar.
Kazar spent a moment staring up at the dwarf, trying to get the room to focus properly. The dwarf smirked and reached down to tweak his nose.
He yelped. "I'm awake!" He was alarmed by the dry crack in his voice. "I'm awake," he repeated, a bit more strongly.
"How you feeling, elf?"
"Weak. Really thirsty. Do you have any water?"
Garott glanced back at the others pointedly. Felicity made no move toward him, merely staring at him as if he had just turned into an abomination and bitten the head off a baby. No help there, then. Not that he was surprised.
Garott sighed and stood to grab a bucket and ladle from the corner. The dwarf was moving carefully around an injury on his chest, Kazar noted, just as Percival had bandages wrapped around his head. All of them were sporting something, it seemed, except the healer.
Garott returned to his bedside and brought a ladle of lukewarm water to his lips. He nearly laughed with relief as the liquid slid down his throat, and he greedily took each spoonful the other Warden offered.
When he'd drank his fill, he laid back with a sigh and closed his eyes. "You lost a lot of… of blood," Felicity's voice said nearby. "That's why you're feeling so awful."
"Trying to make me feel guilty?" he snapped.
"Don't you?" she returned. He turned his head to look at her, seeing her wearing her lecture face. "Blood magic is evil, Kazar! You know that… the Keeper you had to kill was a blood mage, right? So were the mages who destroyed the Tower, and the disaster at Redcliffe started with blood magic!"
"And every unjust slaughter in history involved swords and arrows, but you don't see them outlawed."
"That's completely different!"
"Why, because the Chantry says so?" Kazar shoved himself into a sitting position, despite the weakness and dizziness that washed over him. "Magic is a tool, Felicity—one that can be used for better or worse—and blood magic is no exception to that."
"Except the fact that it makes you more amenable to demons," Felicity shot back. The others—Percival, Garott, and Marnan—watched their exchange in silence. "How long have you been dealing with demons, Kazar?"
"My entire life! I'm a mage; we deal with demons our entire lives, if only to fight them off! For all the Chantry warnings against blood magic, I've found it no more dangerous than the damned Harrowing, which they make us undertake!"
His shouting drew outside attention in the form of Oghren bursting into the chamber, waving his axe and stumbling a bit. "Where's th' sssodding danger?"
Percival gave him a flat look. "Aren't you out of booze by now?"
"Heh… you wish." Oghren stumbled back, half against a wall.
It distracted most of them from Kazar's magical choices… except for fucking Felicity. She still stared at him like a mother disappointed in her recalcitrant child.
It was too much… he couldn't breathe. Kazar shoved himself to his feet, stumbling a bit when the strength leeched out of him. He stubbornly kept his feet, though the worried look Garott gave him indicated he'd gone white.
"Kazar…!" Felicity protested.
"Eat deepstalker shit," Kazar spat back, storming out of the chamber as best he was able in his condition. He wove through a series of tunnels and came out onto the platform overlooking the chasm. He sat on the edge of the chasm (sighing in relief, because his legs had been about to give), peering down at the river of magma below. Nearby, Kazar could see the bridge swarming with Legionnaires, rather than darkspawn. One of several good things that the evil of blood magic had wrought.
They cannot understand, Mouse's voice whispered. Their minds are closed. But you, mage, know how wonderful blood magic can be. Look at the win you wrought today, all because you used what we gave you.
Kazar nodded, his indignation fading before the demon's soothing words. Perhaps their source was demonic, but the words themselves could not have been more true. He'd turned a tide today, and damn whether that Wynne-wannabe approved or not.
Something scuffed behind him, and he turned in time to see Garott settling down on the ledge beside him. Garott held out a flask. "Oghren's finest… wanna sip?"
Kazar hesitated, then took the offered flask. It burned going down, and he coughed. "Stealing from our party members, now?" he wheezed, handing the flask back.
Garott smirked. "Figured the old man had had enough." Kazar managed a weak chuckle. "You okay, kid?"
Kazar shook his head, wiping his mouth. "It's fine."
"You know what you're doin'?"
"I… think so."
Garott arched a brow and took a swig. "Don't sound too sure, kiddo."
Kazar gazed into the chasm. How easy it would be to throw oneself into it, were one inclined. Kazar had never been inclined toward anything like that, preferring to scratch and claw at obstacles until he got his way instead. "I didn't mean to become a… a blood mage. It just happened." By the Fade, he was beginning to sound like Jowan. "But now that I am one, I'm going to use what I've got against them." He waved toward the ruins where the darkspawn still ran rampant. "We need every weapon, even the ones that others may not approve of. That's what it means to be a Grey Warden during a Blight."
"Yep."
Startled, Kazar did a double-take. "You're not going to argue with me?"
Garott shrugged. "Why? I agree with ya, kid. If you got the weapon, and know how to wield it without hurtin' yourself, I say use it."
This is an ally worthy of you, Mouse whispered.
Despite himself, Kazar smiled, agreeing. "Thank you," he said, a little thickly.
"Any time, kid. Any time."