Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T+

Spoilers: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, Origins DL content, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.

Chapter Seventy-Two: Burn This Fucker Down

A pair of mabari hounds running hell-bent for leather past them was enough to rouse the drowsy guards posted on Denerim's north gate. The gigantic, riderless horse that thundered past shortly after, dragging a broken tether, came as a surprise. The shocker lagged some moments behind. A huge stone figure came waddle-running past, and as if that were not startling enough, it spoke to them.

"Don't mind us, Squishy Creatures," it said. "Just passing through on business."

Shale followed the horse, which followed the dogs right through the city streets to Gwaren House. Champion barked her loudest bark and pawed frantically at the front door until it opened. She burst in past the startled servant and shot down the corridors to the main family rooms. Haakon jumped to his feet when his sister burst in, and Elilia dropped her crochet. Paragon burst into the room hot on Champion's heels, and shortly thereafter a gigantic horse head poked through the opening as well, which explained much of the indignant shouting Elilia heard from the common areas. Champion barked, and Bloody Big Horse neighed nervously.

"Maker's breath," Seanna said, as she stopped still in the doorway of the adjoining room. "What on earth is going on?"

"Something's happened to Loghain," Elilia said.

"Was that it's name? I did not pay much attention to its introduction of itself. But regardless, yes, something has happened to it," Shale said, and sidled into the room past the horse. Elilia's eyes bugged out of her head. "What has happened is that it and its companions have been taken prisoner by creatures in armored dresses. The dogs followed it to their prison, and I followed the dogs. If it should care about its fate, it might want to follow me. But that is entirely up to it. It is little to me one way or the other whether it lives or dies."

Keep his captors occupied, and look for a means of escape. That was the goal when Loghain first awoke, chained to a cold stone wall inside a prison cell. He had no idea where he was, but he knew one thing about it: the Chantry had a finger in it. His wardens were templars, and his torturers priests.

The templars and priests called him and his companions maleficarum. They didn't even care that two of them were dwarves, and thus could not be mages at all. Fenris' lyrium tattoos and Loghain's dragon eyes were all the evidence they felt they needed, and Loghain had a sneaking suspicion they did not often require so much evidence as that. He doubted they even knew for certain, yet, that two of his companions actually were mages. The unrest between templars and the Circles, and Alistair's attempts to turn Ferelden into a free-mage state, had evidently driven this particular hidden sect to a mad mage hunt.

In their cells they were chained up out of reach of each other, their hands encased in bonds of lead meant to dampen magical abilities. The main floor of the room where they were jailed was a torture chamber, but the priests who ran it called it "the laboratory." Loghain was determined that his companions never become part of these twisted Chanters' vile "experiments," and to that end he had to keep them occupied. He did so by offering up himself. With his eyes, and the adoption of a determinedly irreverent demeanor, it was easy enough to draw their attention and keep them interested. They believed him to be an abomination, and were keen to learn if such a creature could be broken through the administration of pain.

Determined that they would never wring a scream from him, Loghain steeled himself against their worst efforts. Branding irons were applied to the soles of his feet. He laughed at them. The worse the pain they inflicted, strangely, the easier it was to laugh at them. It was as if something inside of him were stepping in front of the pain and absorbing it. He could still feel it, but it was as if it meant nothing at all. That something inside of him was getting stronger.

He could feel that strange shifting sensation in his throat at all times, but fought against it. He wanted to see these bastards burn, but the room was full of dry timber and the cells were lined with ancient straw. The whole place would go up like a tinderbox and he intended to see his companions out alive. At all times he was testing the restraints that bound him, testing his strength, testing their weaknesses, and testing the patience of his captors. The latter was not, perhaps, strictly necessary, but a man had to take his pleasures where he could find them.

It was hard to determine the passage of time in this windowless cell block. He thought that five days must have passed since they were captured, perhaps a week. Surely not more than that. It felt much longer. Holding his own tongue through that time was less difficult than keeping his companions silent. Hawke knew that the Chantry would be happy to learn they'd caught her, but she seemed to think that Loghain could secure his own release and the others' if he simply disclosed his identity. Loghain himself knew better. Ferelden's Grand Cleric turned a blind eye to it, but he'd been declared anathema by the Chantry numerous times, and the last time in the days since the battle of Sulcher's Pass. They'd be overjoyed to learn they had the infamous heretic Loghain Mac Tir in their grasp.

Bound down to a great rack-like machine of torture, Loghain suffered his captors' torments and pulled at his chains. And at long last, in the chain that bound his right arm, he felt…give.

If the crashing hooves of the giant charger were not enough, the templars guarding the entrance to the squat stone building had Shale's huge stone fists to contend with. Seanna, astride her game little Ferelden Cob mare, cast her spells at them from a safe distance while Elilia leaned far out of Bloody Big Horse's saddle and slashed at them with the blue greatsword Master Wade deemed not quite superior enough. Champion, Paragon, and Haakon tore at any body part they could lock their jaws onto.

"Oh, this is most enjoyable!" Shale said as she crushed a templar's helmet - and the head inside it.

"Hyaa!" Elilia shouted, and pulled Bloody Big horse into a rear. The horse kicked in the iron-barred door with little difficulty. Heedless of the low clearance and tight confines, Elilia rode the horse right inside. The startled defenders of the inner sanctum stood little chance against her righteous rage, and she made no distinction between armored templar and robed priest. If they stood before her, she cut them down.

The ground floor appeared to be living and administrative quarters. The party killed everyone they found, and then Elilia dismounted. The long, winding stone steps leading into the building's deep dungeons were too narrow for Bloody Big Horse to navigate. Shale had some little difficulty with them. The dogs raced ahead and Seanna brought up the rear, and refreshed various defensive spells. They killed every foe and released every prisoner they came across as they worked their way to the heart of the wicked perversions of the Chantry's deepest, darkest secret.

Loghain worked surreptitiously at his chains. He was so focused upon his task that he was scarcely aware of the priests and their templar minions who worked him over; the shallow cuts they made in his chest and stomach, and the hot liquid lyrium they poured into them, might as easily have been happening to another person. He just needed to find the strength. He grasped for it, tantalizingly close but still just out of his reach.

A templar glanced at his face and cocked his head curiously. He leaned in closer for a better look. "Mother Fidelia, look at this. One of its eyes is changing."

"Changing how?" The good "Mother" put down her silverite knife and leaned in for a look herself.

"Changing color. See, there? It's turning yellow, isn't it?"

"Fascinating! I wonder if these means we're finally getting somewhere with it?"

Loghain's inward gaze turned outward suddenly, locked on the Mother's face, and he grinned. "Sure it does," he said, and gave a mighty yank at his chains. A weak link in the bonds holding fast his right arm broke, and the thick chain whipped forward and smashed into the side of the priest's head. Blood spurted from her nose and mouth and she dropped like a stone. The templar swore and tried to draw his sword, but Loghain grabbed him by the neck and hurled him across the room. Then he grabbed hold of his own left wrist and pulled with all the strength he could muster. With a tortured groan, the left-side chain finally snapped. With his ankles still tightly secured, he now at least had some limited freedom of movement. He used his broken chains as weapons to strike out at his captors.

Once he had them at bay he was able to maneuver himself so that his feet slid out of the shackles that held him, though not without losing a fair amount of skin. The blood made his bonds slippery and at last he was free. He launched himself at his remaining captors from a feral position on all fours, like a beast. He fought like a beast; grabbing, tearing, gouging, pounding. A guttural roar rose out of his chest. The swords of the templars were no more than the stings of mosquitoes as he tore them to pieces one by one.

The door burst inward as he was choking the life out of the last of his captors. His attack at this new foe stopped short when he realized that the newcomer was his own wife. "Elilia?" he said in disbelief.

"Dear Maker, Loghain, when are you ever not covered in blood?" she said.

"Ah. It has survived. Although by the looks of it, only just," Shale said. "Well, we have rescued it. Let us settle with the denizens of this hellhole and depart."

A large chest near the door contained the party's confiscated goods. Elilia pulled Loghain's Archdemon sword from it and held it out to him.

"Can you use a sword?" she asked.

"Can a fish swim?" he said. He took the blade and turned to the cell that contained the others. The blue longsword made short work of the lock on the door and the bonds holding his companions. They dressed themselves hurriedly, and searched out the hiding place of the mages' staves and Fenris' greatsword.

"I hope you saved some of these bastards for me," Fenris said, as he hefted his blade.

Loghain found the pouch of Andraste's ashes and made them secure in his inner coat pocket. He put on his mirrored spectacles. "Let's find out, shall we? I want this den of jackals emptied."

They finished with the templars and priests, and released every living soul they found in the dungeon cells. There were many more "laboratories" in the dungeon, and several were in use when they were raided. The victims of these foul experiments were close to death, but Bethany did her best to heal them and they were sent back up the winding stairs to freedom. Many of them were apostates, and many were merely people caught up in the templars' web, whether accidentally or because they harbored family members with magical talent. There were, for some reason, a number of Tranquil as well. Perhaps they were apostates who had been branded right here in the prison, or perhaps they were just another round of experiments. None of the prison's wardens could say, for the party left none alive to testify.

Finished with their bloody task, the former prisoners basked in the sunlight back at the surface. "I don't ever want to be underground again," Varric said. "What in the blue bloody blazes is this place, anyway?"

"I think I know what it is," Seanna said. "I think it must be the Aeonar, the mages' prison. It's a worse place than I ever could have imagined."

Loghain disappeared inside for a few moments, and when he exited again smoke billowed out behind him in a black plume. "It was a worse place. Soon it will be nothing but a pile of ashes."

They watched it burn. A pair of templars returned from a patrol and drew swords. Elilia turned swiftly upon them and held the Archdemon-bone greatsword beneath the nose of the first.

"Ever had your asses handed to you by a pregnant woman?" she asked. "You're about to."

The templars surrendered, and were taken prisoner. Elilia made to mount Bloody Big Horse but Loghain took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Please," he said, "please tell me you've forgiven me. Please say I can come home."

"You're not the one who needs to apologize," she said. "I lost my head, and I'm sorry. It's better, now. It's still difficult. It's a constant struggle to keep myself convinced that nothing terrible is going to happen to me or our child. But I'm holding on. I can hold my head up, now. I can look you in the eye again. Please, come home."

He harnessed his sword and put both hands side by side on her belly, and leaned in and kissed her. Then he knelt down, and kissed her where her stomach belled out slightly to disclose the child she carried.

"Progeny. Splendid," Shale said, in a voice of disgust. "I knew it was pregnant. When I first saw it, it was crocheting baby booties."