113. It All Comes Crashing Down

They were walking through an earthen tunnel when the world began falling apart around them.

Or so it seemed, anyway. The ground and walls started shaking, and it was all Alistair could do to keep his feet. The others weren't so lucky—Felicity would have toppled if Alistair hadn't caught her. Jowan certainly did.

Stone roared and rumbled around them.

"What's going on?" Leliana cried.

"A cave-in!" Felicity gasped. She clutched Alistair's armor, too light to keep her feet as the ground bucked under them.

"Aren't we underground?" Alistair said. "Isn't that a little bad?"

Felicity managed a nod, though it was hard to tell with all the shaking. "Jowan, we need to hold up the cave!"

"Are you mad?" the other mage squeaked, still flat on his back.

Meila, Alistair noticed, had turned sheet-white, and was staring up at the ceiling. Lovely; their tracker was having a meltdown.

"We just need to buttress a few key parts, and we'll be fine!" Felicity tried to push away from Alistair and stand upright, but a particularly strong buck in the ground knocked her right back into his arms. He kept his arms tight around her waist; he didn't fancy seeing her dash that brilliant head of hers against the rocks.

It was a funny feeling, anyway, to be holding a mage as she started casting. It lit up every Templar sense he had cultivated. Kind of tickled, actually.

He felt her moving the earth directly above them, reinforcing the rock with an elemental shield while everything else fell apart. The rock cracked along the walls, and large chunks of earth showered down from above, but the shield held.

Then, part of the tunnel collapsed behind them, and a larger force of stone pressed in from above, and he felt Felicity recoil in his arms. Instinctively, he held her tighter, fully expecting to need to shield her when it finally gave.

"Jowan!" he snapped out, because she was too preoccupied to do so. "A little help!"

The blood mage propped himself up against the shuddering wall, eying the ceiling above them with wide eyes. "I… I don't know how!"

"Just do whatever she's doing!" The stone above them creaked and jerked, and Felicity shuddered. A shower of pebbles rained down on them, and Alistair hunkered over Felicity. "If you don't, we're all dead!"

Jowan swallowed, but started casting, at least. His magic soon joined hers, but it didn't seem to do much to curb the rain of dust and pebbles coming down on them. Were they going to have to resort to blood magic?

Perhaps not. After long minutes of holding their breath and silently praying, the rumbling around them settled down, and the shaking slowed to intermittent shudders in the land. Only once the ground underneath them stopped bucking did Alistair feel like he could breathe again.

Felicity sighed. "It will hold," she said, and both she and Jowan released their shield above them. Alistair studied the ceiling dubiously, but, other than a single groan as it settled, it seemed to be holding all right.

The lot of them were completely caked in dust. Alistair snorted a relieved laugh. "We look like mud monsters or something." Felicity's breath shook with an equally relieved laugh, and he pressed his face into her dust-covered hair, glad that she was so damned smart.

That was the point when Meila, who had kept her feet during the entire ordeal, collapsed.

Felicity tore out of his arms and ran to the elf's side, and Alistair followed close at her heels.

The elf was white as a sheet, with closed eyes. Leliana cradled her head, looking concerned. Felicity expertly checked her vital signs, then let out a sigh. "It's all right. She just fainted."

"Um, Felicity. You know Meila, right?" Alistair said. "Meila Mahariel? The elf who withstood the darkspawn Taint for a month without showing it?"

"Precisely. Meila sublimates any discomforts by default. In this case, I suspect her fear simply overwhelmed her as the adrenaline wore off. She should come around shortly."

Alistair had his concerns, but he trusted Felicity. Reluctantly, he nodded in understanding. While they waited, Leliana hummed a soothing song under her breath.

"So…" Jowan said. "What do you think caused the cave-in?"

Alistair hadn't even considered that. Thousand-year-old tunnels didn't just collapse in on themselves. Right?

A glance at Felicity confirmed it. She nodded. "It's Kazar. I'm almost positive."

"What's he doing?" Alistair reached out and helped her to her feet, then helped dust her robes off. "Does he know we're here? Is he trying to collapse the tunnel on top of us?"

"I don't think so," Jowan said. He picked a chunk of rock out of his hair. "If Kazar wanted to kill us, he'd just shoot a fireball down the tunnel at us. Much easier, and more explosions."

Alistair sent the blood mage a look. "It's disconcerting how well you understand how his mind works."

Jowan shrugged. "Follow someone around for twelve years, and you get to know him."

There was a jerk in the corner of his eye as Meila sat up abruptly. She looked around blindly for a moment, before Leliana managed to get her attention and talk her through whatever panic she was fighting off.

It was… scary, seeing Meila Mahariel that shaken up. Once, he'd thought her a fearless, ice-cold automaton. Now, pale and wide-eyed and clutching Leliana's hand like a lifeline, she seemed so very… human.

Watching Leliana calm her struck him as an intensely private moment, so he turned his attention away, to Felicity.

She looked tired. This trek hadn't been easy on any of them, but she seemed to be taking Kazar's turn worse than the rest of them. She just cared so much… she always needed to fix everyone. It was just how she was built.

He dared to reach in and run a thumb along one of the bags under her eyes, and she turned her startled gaze up to him.

"Are you all right? Do you need a break?"

She smiled but shook her head. "We should press on now. If we're feeling the effects of Kazar's spell, he must be nearby."

"He is," Meila said, letting Leliana pull her to her feet. The elf was still pale—her tattoos standing out stark against her skin—but her normal composure had returned. She nodded a head up the tunnel. "I can hear him faintly." She paused, cocking her head to one side. "He seems to be… laughing."

That couldn't be good. Alistair set a hand to his sword, making sure it was still there after the quaking. It was. "Lead on, then. Let's pray he doesn't try to bring the Deep Roads down on top of us, shall we?"

The elf led them up the tunnel. Part of it had caved in, forcing them to climb over and through tumbled stones. It wasn't too far, fortunately, before the half-collapsed tunnel opened up into a huge underground cavern.

There was a hole in the middle of the floor. Not just a little hole… a huge one. A crater the size of a small town, and it seemed to stretch from one side of the cavern to the other, as far as they could see in the dim light.

Felicity gasped. "He caved in the trench."

Alistair didn't ask Felicity what she meant, because it was then he spotted the elven mage.

Kazar stood at the edge of the crater some fifty feet away, gazing down into the hole with a creepy grin on his face. That might have been bad enough, except that the slimy, skin-crawling aura of a blood mage surrounded him, ringing every Templar-bred alarm Alistair had. And even that was pale in comparison to the other aura around the elf, that seemed to coil and twist with the blood magic in a sick mix.

It was an evil, demonic aura, and it made the blood mage glow. Literally, like a firefly, glow. Except he was glowing red, little cracks of red light creeping out of his very skin as if his petite form was too small to contain it.

Abomination, a voice deep in his soul hissed, and it hadn't really clicked into place until that moment. Kazar was an abomination. They were about to face down a half-demon monster who was possibly as powerful as—if not more than—Uldred.

Kazar turned toward them, his smile never faltering as if greeting expected guests. Maybe he had expected them; maybe he'd known they were following him. Whatever it was, he obviously was neither surprised by, nor concerned about, their presence.

His eyes were pools of red light, and when he spoke, that dissonant demonic undercurrent colored his words. "You missed the show. Too bad for you, there's no need for an encore."

Casual words, but Alistair's hair stood on end even so. This was worse than Uldred. Worse than Connor. With them, it had been obvious what they wanted. He had no idea what this Kazar-creature wanted, which made him unpredictable.

"Erm… hello Kazar," Felicity said. She started to step forward, but Alistair held out an arm, blocking her from passing him. "Why did you cave in the trench?"

He chuckled, turning to face them more fully. "The real question is 'why not'?" He spread his arms, encompassing the room around him, as if to take credit for it. "This is merely a test… a taste of what I could do if I willed it."

Had… he done this? All this rubble was him?

"Even the archdemon…" he waved a hand back, indicating the center of the crater, "…could not stand against the force of my power."

"You mean…" Felicity asked slowly "…it's in there?"

"Was in there. Even a dragon can't withstand a hundred tons of stone raining down upon its head. Or is there something in that collection of useless information you call a brain that would claim differently?" He arched a brow at her, and it was a dare. Did she dare to contradict him?

Alistair bristled. "Don't talk to her like that!"

"Or what?" The smile on the elf's face shifted into something filled with equal parts glee and loathing. "Do you really think you can stand against me? You? Ha! You're not even a real Templar!"

"I'm real enough to smite a twitchy little brat like you!"

"Are you?" He started toward them, looking entirely too smug. "Then why haven't you already? Come on. Try it. I would love to see what you've got."

"Kazar!" Felicity said. "Stop this! We're here to bring you back."

"Back? Back where?" He laughed again. "What makes you think I want anything to do with any of you? I don't need you anymore!" His magic aura thrummed, and lightning coalesced in his hands. He held out one of them. "Amell, perpetual know-it-all and nannygoat I never wanted. Annoying." It was a condemnation, followed by a blast of lightning that sent her flying back, off her feet.

Rage shot through Alistair, and he gathered his will for a smite. He slammed it into the abomination, only for it to fizzle out against the mage's aura. Kazar smirked. "Alistair, Templar and dumbass who doesn't realize that one of the reasons mages take up blood magic is because smites don't work as well on them. Idiot." The lightning blast that followed hit him square in the chest, and he stumbled backwards, his entire body going numb. His world flashed white for a moment as burning pain shot through him.

When he came out of it, he struggled to get his lungs to move… they were paralyzed, and the rest of him with them.

Kazar laughed. "And Jowan. Now you're a surprise. They let you off your leash, Jowan, or is that what the Templar is here for?"

"Kazar, you have to listen to me-"

"No. I don't. You threw me under the wagon one too many times. Coward." Another zap shot across the room.

Alistair gasped in a breath of air, to much aching. But hey, he was breathing. That was a start. He struggled to get the rest of his limbs to stop twitching.

"The bard. I don't even know you, but I'm sure you're annoying." Another bolt.

"Satusulahn!"

Alistair managed to get his elbows under him, and raised his head just in time to see Meila raise her bow. She was the only one of them left standing.

Kazar just looked at her, unconcerned by the arrow aimed at his head. His expression was thoughtful… or, as thoughtful as one could be while overflowing with evil inner red light and nursing lightning in one's hands.

"Meila Mahariel… now there is a curious case."

"Da'lethallin, I do not wish to kill you, but I will if I must."

"Oh, I'm sure you will certainly try." The mage tilted his head. "You take me as a threat, and you were never one to hold back your lethality. But what if I was not a threat to you?" His voice was going silky… oh no. Alistair could guess what that meant—Kazar was half demon after all. He tried to speak a protest, but his tongue still tingled and twitched. It came out sounding like a guttural gurgle.

"We can work together, Meila. With your knowledge and my power, we could remake this world. How wondrous it would be, to bring back the glory of Arlathan. Can you see it?"

And for the first time since Tamlen, Meila's bow faltered. It quivered, and he could see the bowstring loosening.

"It's a trick!" Felicity's voice wheezed. "This is the Pride Demon speaking, not him!"

Kazar's eyes narrowed as he turned to look at the healer. "There's nothing wrong with a little pride." He turned his attention back to the other elf. "She understands that. What else is a Dalish than an elf that has pride in their heritage?" He walked slowly toward her. "And why not? We elves have such a long, difficult history. Once so great, so magical, struck down and enslaved by a race as short-lived and backwards as these quicklings. We deserve more. We are elvhen, and that makes our blood worth being proud of."

Kazar was standing right before the Dalish elf, his red-lit eyes looking straight up the shaft of her arrow. Meila's whole form was tight, frozen. Her face was unreadable stone.

Alistair clambered to his feet, the last of the tingling fading slowly. "Meila, don't!"

"Do not tell her what to do, shemlen." Ice shot out, and Alistair's limbs were cloaked in icy nettles. "Come, lethallan. Let us finish these humans and go take back what is rightfully ours."

Alistair fought against the ice that kept him, watching the scene in horror. Meila's bow lowered slowly, until bow and arrow settled against her hip. She was so still, just looking at him, and Alistair just knew they were losing her.

Kazar held out a hand, glowing with demonic magic and dark with his own blood. "Come, lethallan. Let us remake the world for the elvhen."

Meila dropped her bow and reached out, moving to take that hand, and Alistair could practically see the demonic magic ready to spring from elf to elf. To what purpose, he couldn't guess. To make her a pawn? To make her a partner? Whatever it was, it was demonic, and that meant it was bad.

"No! This is not what the Creators would want!"

Meila froze, and Kazar's gaze snapped to the side, looking with ire at Leliana.

"What do you know about the Creators?"

Leliana leaned on a large boulder near the edge of the pit, having been nearly blown off, from the looks of it. "I know enough to know that they would not want this. Not like this."

"You know nothing." Kazar shot his hand around and blasted the bard with a burst of lightning, sending her flying back, over the lip.

Meila tensed, and Alistair smirked. That had been the abomination's mistake.

Meila drew her belt knife and leapt forward, slashing. She bounced back as the mage released a telekinetic pulse.

Kazar spun back toward her with a sneer. "You want to act like one of them? So be it. You will die with them." The demonic aura around him strengthened and grew, and Alistair, not for the first time, witnessed the transformation of an abomination. His form expanded and widened, until he had tripled in height and multiplied his girth many times over.

Alistair finally broke through the ice, only to look up at the looming silhouette of a gigantic Pride Demon. A memory of the last time they'd fought one of these things flashed through his mind, but he couldn't be afraid. There were lives on the line.

So be it. If Kazar wanted to do this the hard way, then Alistair was game. He'd been waiting a long time for the excuse to give Kazar a good old-fashioned Templar beat-down, anyway.