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-Three: Therein Lurks Madness
Mounted on Bloody Big Horse with Elilia before him as they headed back to Denerim, Loghain would have liked an opportunity to enjoy the experience more than he was able. Their templar prisoners preyed upon his mind, and he was anxious to learn just how much Ferelden's Grand Cleric knew of the activities taking place in her country under Chantry offices. His hope was, not much. Nothing, would be better still. He'd like to be able to hang this one thoroughly on the Divine and her Orlesian hierarchy. He could see a not-too-distant future with Ferelden breaking free of the Orlesian Chantry, but he'd be damned if he'd let the new Ferelden Chantry be as corrupt and unconscionable as the old.
If Elilia shared his worries she did not show it. She was too enrapt in talking with Shale. She clearly found the golem fascinating, and the golem was amenable to answering her many questions, though not without a healthy dollop of sarcasm. Shale stomped at her brisk waddling pace at Bloody Big Horse's side, and the horse was not discomfited by her ground-pounding proximity in the slightest, now that he'd gotten used to her.
"I hope all these questions I'm asking don't bother you, Shale," Elilia said. "I don't mean to be rude, but I am so very curious about you. You remember nothing from before Wilhelm found you in the Deep Roads?"
"Very little. Flashes of things, mostly; memories without context. I remember plenty about my time with my late, unlamented master, and that seems enough to me. The only thing about my missing memories that I regret is my missing sense of purpose. I feel that there must be some direction my life is meant to take, but all I can remember is my life being directed for me by others. It is a most uncomfortable feeling."
"I'd imagine so. You can't remember a time when your actions weren't directed by your control rod?"
"Ought I to? When it was functional, I obeyed. Only now that it is broken do I have free will. The only thing I lack is the knowledge of what to do with it now I've got it."
Elilia shifted uncomfortably. "I…met the inventor of golems, once."
"I find that difficult to believe. Squishy creatures such as itself lead very short lifespans, and golems were invented ever so long ago."
"He was a golem himself."
Shale heaved a heavy sigh. "If this is a chicken-and-the-egg situation, I am not interested in hearing about it," she said.
"No, he was a dwarf, originally. He was made into a golem by his apprentices."
"What? A squishy creature was…made into a golem? How can this be?"
"I'm afraid that's the way it's done, Shale. A golem's life force comes from that of a formerly squishy creature. Yours, too."
"That's sick," Loghain said.
"That's repugnant," Shale said. "No. No, I refuse to believe it. It is lying to me for reasons best known to itself, or otherwise the golem that told it this heinous untruth was lying. Where is he? I should like to meet another talking golem at any rate, and if he is spreading lies about my nature I shall have words for him."
"I'm afraid he's deceased, Shale," Elilia said, carefully avoiding the issue of the fact that she was the reason he was deceased. "But Cairidin wasn't lying, and neither am I. You were once a person of flesh, probably a dwarf. There is a smith in the Deep Roads now who knows the secrets of golem construction, though she wouldn't know the particulars of yours. She's only been making golems for the past decade."
"I have been paralyzed far longer than that. Could it be so? Could this magnificent stone husk of mine once have been purulent, revolting flesh and bone and people-mush? It is a disquieting thought."
"I am sorry you can't speak to Cairidin, Shale," Elilia said, and she meant it. "You could have learned much from him, I expect, even if he was not the one who made you."
"Disquieting," Loghain said. "Disturbing, more like. I thought that at some point Shale must have been possessed by a Fade spirit of some kind, but you say now that this need not be so. Golems would all be free-thinking creatures if their control rods didn't work?"
"So I would assume," Elilia said.
"Well, what bone-headed idiot thought that was a good idea?" he demanded. Elilia shrugged.
"Cairidin," she said. A bit nettled she added, "And me."
"I don't mean that golems are a bad idea; golems are a powerful weapon of war, and I could see why some warriors might choose to make themselves over into one of them. I mean the control rods. You take away a soldier's freedom of thought, you've crippled him. Severely."
"Well, golems are powerful, as you say. A golem you don't control is a golem that might turn that power against you, particularly if that golem is not one by choice. Not everyone submitted to the Anvil was willing."
Loghain sighed and buried his face in her ponytail. "I shall assume you had your reasons for handing the means of golem construction over to the dwarven smith, knowing that."
"Some evils are necessary. The dwarves need golems to defend Orzammar and Kal-Hirol, and it is not for me to deny them that power simply because they might abuse it."
"Substitute will for might," Loghain said. "That kind of power lends itself well to abuse."
"So does magic. But that doesn't mean I feel it is my right to deny mages their lives."
"I don't disagree with you," he said. "If I'd been there, I might have made the same choice you did. Probably would have. I'm just glad you recognize that, necessity or not, the Anvil is an evil."
His arm slipped around her waist and he squeezed her. Shale saw and groaned. Loghain smirked at her.
"You dislike flesh so, Shale, but I wouldn't trade my beloved's squishy bits for all the power in Thedas."
Shale was very quiet the rest of the way. Thoughtful. It was obvious the truth of her origins disturbed her greatly. Elilia, too, was rather quiet that night as they made camp. Finally Seanna broke the silence.
"Just tell him about it," she said to Elilia. "You think because he's a man he can't fully understand, but it will help both of you to have it out, I promise. I bet he'll understand more than you think."
Elilia looked at Loghain. "Could we find some privacy?" she asked. He nodded and stood to follow her a short distance into the trees.
"What's this about, dearest?" he asked. "You seem quite perturbed."
She didn't waste any time. "Have you ever seen a broodmother?" she asked.
"No, I haven't. They never come up from the Deep Roads, as I understand it, and the Montsimmard Wardens were too busy putting on parades and tournaments to venture much belowground. With next to no leadership from the upper hierarchy of the Order, that particular stronghold of the Grey Wardens is just next door to useless. Recruitment was high, though."
"Do you know how they're created?" she asked. "Broodmothers, I mean."
"Ah. I wondered about this. No, not precisely, but I've gathered from what I've heard you and other Wardens say about them that I'm not going to like it when I learn."
She took a deep breath and told him what she knew of how it worked. When she was through his face was drawn and pale. She looked at him with a nervous, wistful expression on her face. Finally, he spoke.
"Maker's breath. And you've seen these poor women, killed them?"
"Several. But only two up-close and personal. One was a dwarf named Laryn. The other…well, I don't know what her name might have been, but she was most likely human. Probably quite pretty once, too. And I'd almost bet you she had children. By the time I met her she was a monster and utterly insane, but I…I felt so sorry for her."
"You gave her peace," he said, almost absently. His pale face was actually beginning to turn an interesting shade of green, and she thought he might vomit. She took a defensive step back.
Instead of regurgitating, he shook his head, and his face suffused with angry blood. "Blast and damnation. I knew the darkspawn were vile, but this…this is…there are no words. They rape women. Their evil knows no bloody boundaries."
"For what it's worth, I don't know that any actual rape occurs," Elilia said. To her surprise, this seemed to make him angrier.
"Of course it's bloody rape. It doesn't matter whether the reproduction happens sexually or through some sort of parthenogenesis; it's rape. It's a violation, forced upon these poor women as they're held as helpless captives."
"I…you're right. You're right." She squatted down on her hunkers and let her hands dangle limply between her knees.
"Can I tell you something I've never told anyone about? Never talked about, even with the people who were there with me?" she asked, when she looked up after a moment.
"If you need to talk, you can tell me anything," Loghain said.
Elilia sighed and looked down again. "There was a darkspawn, an intelligent darkspawn. Called himself the Architect. I think you had your own run-in with him years back, but I'm not sure."
"Through Maric, yes, I think I know the creature you speak of."
"Well. It was my first year at Amaranthine, not long after the First Warden sent you away from me, the bastard. It was the year I killed that second broodmother. He was the reason that encounter was so horrifying. He was the one who made her sane, and drove her mad."
Loghain squatted down before her. "You'd better explain," he said gently.
"He had a plan, you see. He would make the darkspawn intelligent, as he was, by using Grey Warden blood in the same way the Wardens use darkspawn blood, to the opposite effect. The blood makes them resistant, you see, to the Call, the song of the Archdemons. He wanted to make all the darkspawn resistant to the Call, like he was, so that they'd no longer be driven to Blight, and be slaughtered in the thousands. But these creatures, they have no free will, no education…a darkspawn with a freed mind is worse off than Shale, for they've never had souls to guide their purpose at all. Many of the darkspawn he freed resented him for it. The worst of these called herself the Mother."
"The broodmother you speak of."
She nodded. "The Call was her oblivion. It wiped out the abomination that had become of her, made her see nothing but beauty and forget the ugliness. It was an insanity, but it was a mercy. When she was freed, when her mind was her own again and she could remember what she was, what had been done to her, she became a true monster. The Architect…the Architect was a fool. He knew nothing of untainted peoples, nothing of how we act and react. He did not understand and doubtless could never be made to understand that his people are a parasite, one that ought to be driven to extinction. He expected me to help him free the darkspawn from the Call and let him take his beloved 'people' into the Deep Roads to live freely, but I could not do that. In order to propagate themselves they'd have to continue taking women and changing them into abominations, and that I cannot allow. Darkspawn with free will are a greater evil than the ones driven by the Archdemons. They work their evils by choice. And no freed broodmother could ever be anything less than a raving lunatic."
"So you killed the bastard, I hope," Loghain said. Elilia nodded.
"I did. And some of the Wardens with me…Velanna, whose sister the Architect turned, and even Oghren, who was probably thinking of what quiet Deep Roads would mean for Orzammar…thought I made a bad decision. They didn't understand."
He reached out and took her hands in his. "I understand," he said. "I think you made the best choice you could make. The only choice."
She smiled. Only a little, but it was a smile. "Thank you."
"Now, can I ask you something?" he said. She nodded. "Did you know you were pregnant the day we faced the dragon?"
She gulped slightly. "Yes."
"So you were already struggling with that - with these bad memories - when I vomited in your mouth."
"Yes, I guess I was."
"My poor girl," he said in a murmur. "All this time you've been suffering, and you had to go it alone. I'm so sorry, my darling. I wish I could have comforted you somehow."
"I'm sorry I pushed you away. I just couldn't bear to think that you might…"
"Might not understand?"
She nodded, then rocked forward on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. "I'm sorry, my love," she said when she broke the kiss. "I'll never doubt you again."
He snorted softly. "You will. I'll bring it on myself, surely. But I will never turn from you, my darling. Not now, not ever again."
A/N: Parthenogenesis. You have no idea how much I waffled on whether or not Loghain would use that word. I usually go with my first instinct, but that's not a word a lot of people can just pull out of their asses. Finally I went with it but I'm still not certain he'd know it, or well enough to use it on the fly. I justify myself with the knowledge that Loghain only THINKS of himself as uneducated.