Chapter 35
"A fool trusts his eyes. A wise man fears every rock is a deepstalker."
—Dwarven saying
Malcolm
In the past hour, Malcolm had learned two things about the Commander of the Legion of the Dead: she did not mind hugs from exhausted, grateful children who viewed the Legion as their saviors from the Deep Roads, and she also happened to be King Bhelen's exiled, presumed dead, elder sister.
It also meant she was Hildur's niece, which was vastly more impressive.
Malcolm lasted three whole hours before he asked if she'd actually killed Trian, the eldest of King Endrin's three children. Wynne heard and frowned at him. Sereda just laughed.
Some of the younger members of the Legion—they'd actually managed to run into the bulk of them, a rare stroke of luck—had taken on the task of distracting the children, telling brilliant stories of life in Orzammar. Malcolm had grinned when one Legionnaire told them about dwarven babies being hatched from rocks. The children had been skeptical when he'd told them, but they seemed to believe it from a dwarf.
Since Sereda didn't seem to mind questions, Malcolm felt no compunction to hold back the next time he had the opportunity to talk with her. As they walked the perimeter of their camp at the way station, Malcolm asked, "Does your aunt know you're alive?"
She didn't roll her eyes at him, but the look she directed at him conveyed the same message. "Of course she does. I saw her a few years ago, when she asked if I wanted to be a Warden instead of a Legionnaire. Back then, I was just a captain, which was a serious demotion from commanding the Aeducan forces. It wasn't until the year after that the Legion put me as commander after Jeroen turned it down."
"She didn't mention it to any of us." Hildur, Malcolm knew from experience, liked to talk about members of her family who weren't Bhelen. She loved her nephew, in her own way, but had never entirely let go of the fact that he'd killed her other nephew, Trian, and gotten her niece, Sereda, banished to the Deep Roads so that he could secure the throne of Orzammar for himself. She did love her great-nephew, however. She talked about little Endrin, Bhelen's son, as often as she could, which was a lot. Sereda, he'd more than noticed, was a lot like Hildur, so the fact that Hildur hadn't mentioned her bewildered him.
"That'd be because I'm technically dead."
"Oh, right, that." He rolled his eyes. "And your brother? Does he know you're alive? It'd probably be something he'd want to know. Or that you'd want him to know, not that I think of it."
"Don't worry, he knows. I glared at him the entire time I was last in Orzammar with the Legion."
Malcolm recalled the blood on the streets nature of Orzammar politics and couldn't understand why Sereda hadn't added to the blood on the streets by getting even with her scheming brother. "You didn't try to kill him? I'm pretty sure I heard he set you up for exile and your technical death, which he wanted to make a real one with you wandering the Deep Roads."
"He did. And I didn't kill him because he's a good king for Orzammar. Should that change, I might change my mind about the killing. For now, good for Orzammar, but not so great for our family. I really just wish he'd sodding asked me if I even wanted the throne before he wormed his way onto it. I would've teamed up with him. He takes the throne, I command the armies, and we'd both be happy." She frowned. "Happier? He's king and I lead an army now, but I did like that not being dead thing."
"Most do, I've learned. Except for you Legion types."
"Deep Roads will do that to you. Grey Wardens don't have legs to stand on with it, even if it's your long surfacer legs."
Despite having discussed it with several well-connected dwarves over the years, Malcolm still had a hard time wrapping his head around dwarven politics. It really made Fereldan politics, possibly even Orlesian politics, look like skipping through a flowery meadow in comparison. "Didn't you guys have an older brother, though? Trian? He'd be more than in the way of whatever scheme Bhelen cooked up, even if he'd planned with you instead of against. Would you have worked with him? Would he have worked with you?"
Sereda laughed again. Her laughs were unabashed every time, echoing off the damp stone of the Deep Roads. "He'd still be dead. He was an arse. You'd have to have met him to know."
"A right sodding arse!" one of the Legionnaires shouted.
"He met him, I take it?" asked Malcolm.
"One of the longest-dead-yet-alive Legionnaires around. He came in a month before me, and still hasn't returned to the Stone."
"Haven't killed enough darkspawn yet," said the Legionnaire.
"I just don't—he had you thrown into the Deep Roads! It's disconcerting how calm you are about it." That was what really got him, he supposed. Fereldan nobles got riled up over the seemingly most simple and stupid things—names for mabari, for instance—while people like Sereda or Hildur took things like banishment in an incredibly calm stride. "It's remarkable, is what I mean, that you're so level-headed about everything." He could stand to learn some of it, given his situation. Clarity of mind and vision was something he direly needed if he was going to find and rescue his family, but anxiety driven by anger had started to cloud it.
"Being dead gives you perspective." She smiled at him when he rolled his eyes again. "Besides, even with my technicality of a death, Bhelen has no arguments against me seeing my nephew whenever I'm in Orzammar. And, like I said, I'm mostly content with leading the Legion. Perspective goes a long way, surfacer."
"Maybe. Or it's your blood. You're a lot like Hildur."
Sereda grinned, showing Malcolm the charisma that'd gotten her to the top position of the Legion without the influence of House Aeducan. "She always was my favorite aunt. My only aunt, but even if there'd been others, she'd still be the favorite." She elbowed him as he shook his head. "Speaking of shared blood, I met your brother once."
It was Malcolm's turn to frown. "Alistair never mentioned it." And he would have too, given Sereda was a relative of Hildur's, which was fascinating in of itself, sort of like how Rhys was Wynne's son.
He still couldn't wait to tell Líadan about that one. Alistair and Fergus too, actually.
"Not that brother," said Sereda.
His brow furrowed. "I'm not sure if Fergus has even been to Orzammar at all, and if he did, it wasn't while you were still there."
"Not him, either."
Malcolm groaned and let his head drop back so he could see the rock ceiling above them before facing Sereda again. "Cailan? You met Cailan? You poor woman. You must think we're all daft." He would, if the only Theirin he'd met had been Cailan.
"No, not all of you. Just him. I've got two brothers of my own, as we discussed. I know how it is."
"That ass left Alistair with the throne because he was stupid."
"And Bhelen stole the throne from me because he was stupid and didn't just ask me for it first. I suppose that technically he stole it from Trian first so that it'd go to me so that he could take it then, but still. You get my meaning. Brothers are stupid, but somehow we still love them, even if we hate their guts."
"Oh, there's some of the bitterness I was expecting."
"Helps with the perspective."
"Wasn't that from your philosophical death?"
"That, too."
The rest of their walk was spent discussing plans going forth. Malcolm had every intention of going straight to Kirkwall and not going to Orzammar first with the rescued mages. He couldn't bring himself to wait any longer to see to his own family. While he didn't begrudge the help he'd given in freeing Rhys, the guilt and anxiety over the continued separation from his own family finally threatened to overwhelm him. He needed to do something about it, and that meant Kirkwall, even if he had to go by himself. Not that he was stupid. He'd ask for help from the Legion, at the very least. And maybe some of the mages would volunteer to go, but he knew they had building of their own to do in creating a new Circle entirely free of the Chantry.
He absolutely had to go, and he told Wynne as much the next morning, over flatbread from an iron pan over a fire, along with some sort of meat concoction from the Legion. They didn't explain what it was aside from non-tainted, and Malcolm decided it was best not to question it.
Concern suffused Wynne's eyes as her brows pulled together in sadness. "Rhys won't be able to accompany you," she said quietly.
"I figured," said Malcolm, biting back the automatic, dry reply about Rhys still being unconscious. Wynne didn't need to be have it thrown in her face.
She set down her tin plate, brought her hands together, and then looked at him until he met her gaze. Only then did she speak. "I don't think you quite understand the unknown threat of Rhys' injuries. He'll wake up, we know that much, but on his own time. And when he does… we can't be sure how much of him will be left. He may have lost himself. He may have lost his knowledge, and we can't know, not right now. And you—"
"I might need what he knows," Malcolm finished for her, his breakfast forgotten and meaningless in his hands. "And it might be gone forever and we don't even know." He dropped his plate, thought better of wasting the food, and snatched back the half-eaten piece of bread. Then he glared at the plate.
He was still glaring at the innocent plate when Karl approached them and then sat down. "You've told him, I take it?" he asked Wynne.
"As you can see," she said.
Karl sighed. "We know bits and pieces of the ritual, and some of us are starting to form half-viable theories now that we know it can be done. We'll be able to come up with something, but we don't know when. Could be weeks, could be years. It's too nebulous to tell right now. The only sure thing is Rhys, but even he isn't a sure thing if he wakes up thinking he's the Queen of Antiva. The Queen of Antiva then might know how to reverse Tranquility, but I wouldn't stake my life on it." His frown grew deeper, and the look he briefly cast toward Rhys wasn't reassuring. "Unfortunately, Malcolm, you don't exactly have that choice. You haven't talked about it, but you aren't stupid, and neither are we, and we all know the possibility of what might happen to your family while in the Gallows."
Malcolm nodded without looking at either of them. He would be an ass to get upset over this, especially in front of Wynne. She wasn't pitching some sort of fit, and he knew he shouldn't either. But he'd held the frightening thoughts at bay for a long while, concentrating on rescue, throwing the rest of the possibilities into a haze of nothingness that he could address later, and only if he had to. No reason to fly apart now, not that circumstances weren't making it incredibly difficult to keep it together.
"And those possibilities are why you still need to go to Kirkwall now," said Karl. "Even if it means bringing them back to Orzammar, spending the week or more of travel time while they're… not themselves."
The willful haze of scary possibilities began to resolve, forming into probable realities. He stood up, fighting the strongest urge to bolt he'd had since the Blight.
He didn't bolt. He stayed right there, standing by the small, smokeless fire, his eyes staring into the shadows of the Deep Roads. The threat of reality almost made him wish for darkspawn, but there weren't any nearby, not that he'd truly wish them on the encampment. Him going to Kirkwall and then back to Orzammar would be faster than going to Orzammar and waiting for Rhys to convalesce, or even awaken.
Maybe everything would be fine with everyone. That would be nice.
"It would likely still be the quickest of your options," said Karl.
"I know," said Malcolm, and then he turned around. "I'll make sure you and the others are granted safe haven in Orzammar for as long as you need." Before either of them could acknowledge him, he strode to his tent to fetch out the book where he kept the sketches the Deep Roads. Some of the Legion had offered to annotate the maps and add any further information they had, and he needed to take advantage of it while he could. Some remembered the best path to Kirkwall, which was something he absolutely needed. He also pretended that his primary objective wasn't to keep his mind from losing its protective haze. Sereda had said she intended on starting for Orzammar the next day, and so he needed to get things done.
One of those things, he realized as he jotted down the last of the notes the Legionnaires had told him, was that he needed to get messages to Alistair and Hildur. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't trust Leliana to do what she'd promised—he'd been burned on that too many times already, especially by her—which meant he had to find another way.
If she didn't come through, he'd really miss his horse, and that was all he was willing to acknowledge as he wrote down the simple message in the most recent Warden cipher. The dwarves didn't care about surface politics, but one could never know whose hands a message would fall into, so the cipher was the safest option. As long as she was willing, Sereda could carry it and deliver it to Natia and Leske when she got to Orzammar.
Sereda agreed without hesitation, snatching the message out of his hand and squirreling it away in a pocket before he'd even fully finished his question. "Also," she said, not bothering to wait for him to explain beyond the letter needing to get to Natia and Leske, "I'm sending some of the Legion with you."
He blinked at how she'd trampled right through his plans on how their conversation would go. "Not that I'm unhappy at this sudden influx of aid, but why offer before I even asked?"
"Because Hildur would want me to. I'm not afraid of Bhelen, but Hildur is…"
"I know exactly what you mean."
She nodded. "Besides, we're dead already. Doesn't matter where in the Deep Roads we are, so long as there's darkspawn. If it means helping a decent guy rescue his family, even better."
"I"m decent!" He grinned despite the situation. "I should have that engraved on something."
"I'd say your forehead, but your earnestness does it all on its own."
Now he knew Sereda and Hildur were related. "I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not."
"The insipid prince should only feel insulted if it is a dwarf," Shale said from nearby. "Considering its height and that it is not a golem, it has not been insulted. If it would like, I could properly insult it."
"No thanks, I'm good."
"It should feel free to avail me if it changes its mind."
Next to one of the small fires in that night's encampment, Sereda went over Malcolm's route, marking exits if he had to run, and marking a final exit in the Planasene Forest. "The last group that went out beyond that exit, we never heard from again, not even from the scout every company has assigned to run back to tell us what happened. So, don't go there. Slog through the forest instead, surfacer."
"That isn't the punishment you think it to be," said Malcolm. "I like trees and sky."
"Well, since a good many of us believe you can fall up into your sky, the company with you will stay behind in the Deep Roads, so you're on your own in that forest of yours. Have fun."
"You won't be alone," Wynne said from the other side of the fire. "I will be with you."
Malcolm swung his head around. "What?"
She gave him a look that told him she knew that he'd heard her the first time, and then opted to speak to him like she would a particularly dull student, yet a student of whom she was quite fond. "You delayed your own journey to aid me in mine. It's a small thing I can do to return the favor in helping you rescue your family."
His eyes flicked toward the other fires and smattering of bedrolls and a few tents, where children and adult mages slept, convalesced, or talked quietly. "But the others—"
"They can take care of themselves. Karl leads them, not me. I can rejoin them after we've seen your family out of the templars' hands."
Still. He would be loath to leave his own child's side if they were injured like Rhys was, grown adult or not. "Are you sure?"
"I am not feeble of mind, young man."
He ignored the slight admonishment. He never actually questioned her faculties—Wynne had remained sharp as she'd aged, and didn't look to be losing that sharpness anytime soon. And he knew that she was using the sharpness of her tone to avoid talking about her injured adult child. "What about Rhys?"
She sighed and briefly glanced in the direction of the tent where Rhys slept as he'd been sleeping for days. "He'll awaken when he awakens, and all that can be done for him has been done. There is nothing for me to do but wait. I might as well use that time to help the friend who helped me, especially since he put off rescuing his own family to do it."
"I couldn't not help."
She smiled fondly at him. "I know, child. I know."
A rumble of rocks heralded Shale's disgust at the show of emotion. Then she said, "I will go with it, as well."
"Really?" He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice at that one, though he should've known, since Shale seemed to go where Wynne went, these days.
"The insipid prince would get crushed if it goes alone, and the elder mage would be crushed with it. It would be most unfortunate."
"It would."
"The wild elf would also be most unhappy."
"Also true."
"Then it is decided. I will go with it and the elder mage."
The rest of their group who'd traveled together to Adamant overheard their conversation—frankly, everyone heard whatever Shale said whenever she said it—and abandoned whatever else they'd been doing in favor of joining in to lodge their own protests. Adrian went on about wanting to become a Warden so the Chantry would have no excuse ever to track her down, but Malcolm didn't think she'd live through the Joining. Also, even if he believed she could survive it, he wasn't sure if she'd make a good Warden. Then again, he'd thought the same of Velanna, years ago, and she hadn't been half bad.
It was against his better judgment, but he damn well knew he was biased. "Fine," he said to Adrian, "you want to be a Warden? I won't make you one unless you're tainted in the next day and you didn't do it to yourself on purpose. However, if you decide you still want to be one when you get to Orzammar, ask Sereda to take you to Natia and Leske in the Warden compound there and ask them."
She didn't seem the least bit grateful, though she didn't know like he did that the commanders of the Orzammar compound took a lot more chances than he did. They rather liked throwing volunteers into the Deep Roads and into the Joining. "Do you expect me to tell them that you don't want me to become one?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Tell them or not. They'll still let you try."
"Choose wisely," said Karl. "The Libertarians may need you."
"Circle politics will still apply, even outside the Chantry's oversight?" Evangeline asked with more than a hint of incredulity in her voice.
Karl cast her a weary look. "Circle politics are Circle politics. They were never the Chantry's in the first place. I'd like to form a Circle in Orzammar, if we're allowed, and if not, find out what Malcolm can arrange with his brother in Ferelden, but I'm a leader, not a dictator. I'll still have to get the consensus of the Circle, and that means votes from each faction."
"It should dictate," said Shale. "Much easier."
"I've more than half a mind to do it, sometimes." Karl gave her a self-deprecating smile. "One does get tired of herding cats, after all."
"Sounds like the Landsmeet," said Malcolm. And from what he'd seen before things had gone arse-up in the conclave, it'd looked like the Landsmeet, too. "Do you think people will want to return to the Chantry? Seems more than a bit like sending lambs to slaughter. I don't think Seeker Nicanor will be inclined toward mercy, even if you apologize for having been broken out of a veritable prison."
"I'm inclined to agree," said Adrian. "I've no intention of returning, not to what the Order has become. Perhaps I can find others who are like-minded. Or I could just become a Grey Warden."
"If you want. But," said Malcolm as he watched Adrian curse at him and walk away, "I think you'll be needed in Orzammar with whatever Circle forms there. From what I hear, templars aren't unnecessary. It's just nasty templars who are unnecessary. I'm not a mage, but you haven't yet been the nasty type."
"No, she is certainly not," said Wynne.
Malcolm believed her a little biased, since Rhys' father was apparently a templar. And he couldn't wait to tell Líadan that tasty bit of gossip, either. Maker's balls, he really missed his wife. His best friend. Just missed her, really. He shook himself out of the melancholy. He couldn't afford to get distracted now, not after he'd managed to hold his focus for this long. "You have all the time you need to decide," he said to Evangeline. "The offer won't be taken off the table just because you can't decide immediately. You've got things that need seeing to, as do the rest of us. If you ever find yourself wanting to become a Warden, just come to Denerim, or go to the compound in Orzammar, or go to Vigil's Keep or Soldier's Peak, whichever."
"What about me?" asked Finn.
"You said you didn't want to be a Warden," said Malcolm.
Finn half rolled his eyes, though the tight grip he had on his stave spoke to how truly anxious he was. "No, not that. Too dirty. No, I was talking about going to Kirkwall. I want to help."
"The Circle, such as it is, cannot be left without a healthy spirit healer during their journey," Wynne said softly. "That healer is you. You can help by going with them to Orzammar."
"You only want me to be their healer because I'm literally the only choice outside yourself." Finn didn't sound angry to Malcolm, not quite. More like someone who'd never seemed to live up to the standards of people he respected, all while desperately trying to prove that he not only met those standards, but surpassed them. And it wasn't like any of them, especially Wynne, hadn't talked about underestimating him. While he didn't project as being old and wise like Wynne, or had the brash, outgoing personality of Anders before Justice, or even the easy, confident manner like Rhys had, Finn was just as good as Rhys, nearly as good as Wynne or Anders, and had plenty of time left to learn more.
"I would have chosen you regardless of whether or not there were others available," said Wynne. "You have proven yourself these past weeks, and it was my mistake to underestimate you at first. You are a fine healer, and I would like for you to oversee Rhys' recovery until I join the rest of you in Orzammar."
"The fussy mage has made itself rather useful to the other squishy beings," said Shale. "It should continue to be useful in Orzammar, and not crushed like the elder mage and insipid prince will most likely be in the near future."
Finn looked slightly less dubious, but only just.
Wynne sighed and took Finn by the arm. "Come along. We have much to go over before we part ways tomorrow."
Most of the farewells in the Deep Roads morning weren't as hard as Malcolm had thought, which he believed had something to do with his drive to move on not letting him dwell on friends left behind. Sereda would see them safely to Orzammar and they'd be all right. The only real question was Rhys, and Malcolm knew his being there would hold no sway over whether or not Rhys would recover.
Finn lent him a book to read, with the admonishment not to let it get dirty, because it was a properly checked out library book and he wanted to see it returned, eventually. Evangeline shared a warm handshake with him and told him she looked forward to meeting his family in Orzammar. Adrian refused to speak with him, and Rhys continued with his unconsciousness, even as Wynne made her own farewells to him.
That scene got to Malcolm a little and he busied himself with checking on the condition of his equipment, which he knew to be fine because he'd already checked on it. Then he slipped his hand to the bottom of his pack to make sure he still had the doll and the book. Before he'd finished removing his arm from his pack, someone asked from behind him, "You'll be careful, right?"
Malcolm nearly leapt straight into the air as he spun to find Katell standing there. "Your footsteps should be a lot louder," he said to her, not quite making it an admonishment. Really, her inadvertent ability at stealth was impressive. "Anyway, yes. I'll be as careful as a Warden can in the Deep Roads."
She narrowed her eyes. "That didn't seem like an answer."
"Well, it's hard to be careful in the Deep Roads."
Her immediate huff of exasperation was of the kind only a child could muster. "You're preva… prevera… I don't know the word in your language."
He took pity on her. "Prevaricating?"
"I think so."
"Don't worry. Wynne will be with me. She won't let me not be careful."
That answer seemed to mollify her. "She doesn't let anyone else, so I suppose that would go for a Grey Warden, too."
"Don't forget princes and kings. She wields her special authority over us all." Commenting on it wasn't half the fun when Wynne wasn't paying attention, though. "Maybe I'll just have her deal with Knight-Commander Meredith. It could work."
But Katell wasn't mollified by Malcolm's humor, and she kept wringing her hands. "I hope you can get your children out of the Gallows. They don't deserve to be in there. And you don't deserve to be without them."
"Thank you," he said, oddly choked up. Maker. Because a kid needed to see a Warden crying in the Deep Roads. If they'd just sighted a broodmother, that'd be one thing, but this was just good bye. It made a kind of sense, however. All the other farewells hadn't been much fraught, so things had to even out somehow.
"Grand Enchanter Karl said we'd be staying in Orzammar for a while, maybe permanently," she said. "First Enchanter Irving agreed with him—I had to get a second opinion because sometimes Karl likes to stretch the truth, Wynne said."
"She's right," said Malcolm.
Katell nodded, remaining serious where Malcolm would've liked to have been lighthearted. "If we do stay there, maybe you could visit? Bring your family with you? I'd like to meet them. Wynne told me a lot of stories. Irving, too."
"Did they now? Do I want to know what ones?"
She smiled. "Probably not."
"All right then," he said, happy enough that Katell had brightened. "I'll bring them. Cáel and Ava have been asking to visit Orzammar for ages. I suppose I should indulge them, what with being held in a Circle for weeks and all."
"Oh, good! They sound fun, from the stories. More fun than the other children here."
He found himself agreeing, but didn't say so out loud. Most likely, some of the other children were suffering emotionally from what'd happened at the White Spire and during their trip through the Deep Roads. Or, Katell could be totally right and the other kids were boring. Mostly, Malcolm desperately hoped that Ava and Líadan would be themselves when they visited Orzammar, and not in need of Rhys aside from meeting him.
Malcolm didn't bring up Rhys again as they marched toward Kirkwall. He didn't want to remind Wynne of who might not be waiting for her at Orzammar, at least not the who she'd known. And, he'd found out, she'd not known for long. Not long enough, in his opinion, because the Chantry had torn them apart just after Rhys had been born. From what he'd seen with Morrigan, giving up one's child was difficult enough, even if it was voluntarily. To have your child taken away by force, just after—he couldn't fathom it. Wynne had finally gotten the chance to meet and know her son, and said son could be an entirely different person when she got to see him again.
So, they focused on other things, moving through the Deep Roads with a surprising amount of speed now that they weren't hampered by a pack of mages inexperienced with protracted battle and the Deep Roads both, and with the addition of a Legion company that knew exactly how to deal with both.
"I apologize," Wynne said out of nowhere a few days later.
"What?" Those weren't words one heard often from Wynne, and Malcolm had no idea where they'd come from. He certainly hadn't prompted it.
"I apologize, for encouraging you to have Ava put in the Circle. In light of recent events, I can now see how you viewed it as a mistake, and I now believe it would have been, as well."
As much as he appreciated the acknowledgement, the sincerity and depth of feeling just wasn't something he was prepared to deal with right then. Darkspawn, yes. Emotions of the sensitive sort, no. "That wasn't encouragement. You were ordering me."
"Perhaps I was." The slight smile that briefly showed on her lips made him feel better, though it disappeared quickly.
"You were."
"I did, and I am sorry. Will you accept my apology?"
Malcolm thought of what they'd gone through in the White Spire, and thought of how she remained at his side, determined to help him free his children as he'd helped free hers. "I do, yes. I really do."
"Need I refrain from future lectures?"
"While I'm tempted to say you should, I'd start to think something was wrong with you. So, no. Just… save them for innocuous things, like reminding me to wear my cloak when I go outside or I'll catch cold. Things like that."
She sniffed. "Colds are not as trivial as you seem to think, young man. The effects of a cold could result in you being struck down in battle. Do not brush off the importance of keeping warm."
He grinned. "That's better."
"It could become a golem," said Shale. "Golems do not require such things as cloaks."
"I like being human." And he did, even with the mortality part and the parts where he and Líadan struggled with being in love even though he was human and she was elven. But they'd made it work, and once they were back together, they'd make it keep working.
"I shall remind it the next time it has been injured in combat, as it rolls about on the ground and groans in agony, that golems cannot be injured so easily."
"You have a point, you do, but it'd be hard for me to hug my kids if I was a golem. There's that whole part where you can't bring your arms together around your front, which is necessary for a good hug. Plus, if you squeezed at all, you'd be squeezing with all that rock, which could be pretty uncomfortable for the person being hugged. Or deadly, actually."
"It has strange objections to becoming a golem."
"I don't think you were hugged enough as a child. We should get you caught up on that."
"It should stay away from me, if it wishes to keep its arms."
"I reckon I'd like to see that fight, Warden against golem," said one of the Legionnaires just ahead of them.
"You'll have to find another Warden for it," said Malcolm.
"It is smarter than it looks," said Shale.
He smiled, the easy, familiar banter lifting some of the darkness of the Deep Roads. "You say the nicest things, Shale."
"It should not become overconfident. It looks as dumb as an anvil, but when it speaks, it proves at least as intelligent as a sack of hammers."
One of the Legionnaires guffawed. Malcolm was fairly certain it was Jeroen, the captain they'd met at Cadash thaig ages ago. And he couldn't even threaten Jeroen or any of the Legionnaires with not covering them in a battle as well as he should, because they were already metaphorically dead, which meant they wouldn't care. Since they wouldn't care, they wouldn't be moved in the slightest about not laughing at him.
It was still better than the White Spire.
For his own good, Malcolm disengaged from the conversation with Shale, because she was already trouncing him and was likely to continue doing so, and there was only so much he could take. Then an incredibly shiny rock lodged within a caved-in section of the wall lining the road caught his attention. It wasn't the normal sort of shiny or sparkling he saw with mica flecks; it was stronger.
He jogged over to study it, needing to slouch only slightly to get at eye-level. A few glittering motes, almost like really intense mica, floated in front of it. "What's this rock?" he asked as Shale lumbered past him.
She glanced over, and then shrugged. "Does it expect me to know each stone only because I am made of stone?"
He rolled his eyes. "I was just wondering, not assuming."
"Yes, well, it should wonder at something else."
"It's glitterstone," said another of the Legionnaires. "Real pretty, but its dust—unoriginally called glitterdust—is poison. Don't inhale when you're that close or you'll be sneezing for weeks."
"We only find it under the Free Marches," said the captain. "We're probably a day or so away from the Planasene exit. Be on the lookout for a way station. There's one around here somewhere, and I'd rather we camp there for the night than in the open."
Malcolm glanced around them as he stepped away from the glitterstone and muttered, "Seems awfully enclosed to me." Though, when it came to feeling trapped, he usually did all right in the Deep Roads until about four weeks in. It was Líadan who'd never dealt well with it, her tolerance measured in maybe days, but they'd taken so many trips in the Deep Roads together that he defaulted to thinking of both their well-being, not just his own. She'd have gone stir crazy by now, itching to get outside, as she'd been ever since her first foray into the Deep Roads. The memory of her giving Oghren shit the moment they got outside—Oghren had never quite managed to convince himself that the sky wouldn't pluck him from the ground—warmed him inside. Even the memory of the arguments he and she got into later didn't take away from that warmth, not when he clung to them this tightly.
"You'll live, Warden," said Jeroen. Then he paused to think about it. "Probably."
He was about to offer a rejoinder when an inhuman wail seized his attention. Malcolm nearly shivered from the cold tremor the strangled, yet forceful sound sent through him.
"What was that?" asked one of the younger Legionnaires.
"Dust wraith," Jeroen told her before he turned to Malcolm. "You surfacers ever see 'em?"
"We usually call them ash wraiths, but given they sound exactly the same, I bet they're the same thing. They're a serious pain in the ass to kill."
Jeroen paused in mid-motion of putting on his helm to raise both his eyebrows at Malcolm. "You can kill them? How do you do it? We could never figure it out. We see 'em and we have to run. If we're going to find our way to the Stone down here, it's the darkspawn that'll put us there. Not whatever those things are."
"You can't kill them. Neither can I, actually. It takes magic, which means this one is all Wynne's, and the rest of us are just distractions. And if we don't want anyone to die—or die again, in the Legion's case—we'd better be good ones." Then he followed Jeroen's example and jammed on his own helm.
"The elder mage does tend toward squishy," said Shale. "I shall protect it."
"We all will," said Malcolm.
"I'm almost touched," said Wynne. "And I would be if I didn't know protecting me meant saving your own necks."
Despite the growing vortex and whispers of dust over rock that heralded the wraith forming itself, Malcolm grinned at Wynne. "You'd save us, anyway."
She sighed as she called up her magic. "True. Maker knows why I do."
The wraith attacked first, hurling into them a burning wind laced with debris. The wind wrapped around them as they hid behind shields and Shale. The veneer of safety had them belatedly realizing their mistake, and they broke apart so the flames couldn't engulf them all. Shale placed her massive form between Wynne and the wraith, up until Wynne shouted over the wind for her to move because she couldn't see a thing.
"It will trade with me," Shale said to Malcolm. Without waiting for a reply, she lowered her shoulder and lumbered for the wraith terrorizing a clump of Legionnaires.
The wraith paid for not paying attention to the golem. Shale whacked it with her fist, breaking it into floating tendrils of dust. The dwarves scattered, aiming to track and kill the tendrils, despite Jeroen yelling at them that their blades wouldn't do any good against it. Malcolm understood the impulse, because swinging through it meant it might disperse, and having it disappear felt like a victory, up until it reformed behind you and bit you in the ass. Literally, considering the size of its mouth. If it could be called a mouth. It had teeth, so Malcolm figured it counted.
Like he'd predicted, the wraith reformed behind them and headed for Wynne. She stopped her preparations for casting a spell Malcolm recognized as one of her most powerful outside a healing spell—a green wisp floated near her head, summoned to increase her power, and even Malcolm could feel the tingling touch of the extra mana she'd already drawn from the Fade—and instead flung a simple bolt of ice toward the wraith. It knocked it off course, but only just, yet it was enough for two of the Legionnaires to heave war axes into it, breaking it apart again.
Wynne went back to her preparations. Malcolm shouted for the Legion to keep the wraith occupied if they wanted Wynne to cast sometime in the next age, but he wasn't sure if they'd heard him. He knew she'd prefer to cast that blizzard spell of hers right over the wraith—it locked the wraith down and slowly froze it, which killed it when combined with a good shatter. The problem was that it took a while to get the spell ready, and the wraith would catch on soon enough that Wynne was the only real danger presented to it. During the Blight, they'd had multiple mages, meaning it kept getting distracted, and two mages could play it back and forth between them as another readied the spell. Not so here today.
There was also the problem of the Legion not knowing the group tactics used against wraiths, including what to watch for with the mages to know when to clear out of an area so they weren't hit by the spell, too. Resistant to magic even as they were, a blizzard could take down a dwarf before they'd be able to escape its vortex. Malcolm had no idea how to communicate that to the entire company, not with the wind and the screams and the wails, and he'd remembered it too late.
None yet the wiser, the wraith reformed to take revenge on the dwarves. Once again, they managed to disperse it, but they were caught off guard when a breeze on one side of the road drew their attention. The wraith formed behind them and grabbed one of the Legionnaires, and then threw her down onto the rest of the group.
"A duster killed by dust!" said the dwarf, who had the misfortune of landing on a fellow Legionnaire's sword. The sword's owner looked absolutely horrified, but the duster was dead before an apology could form on the sword wielder's lips. In an example of the utmost gallows humor, a few of the Legionnaires managed to laugh at the dead duster's joke.
Malcolm was caught halfway between the group where the wraith whipped around with its arms, its flame and wind pelting the Legionnaires with burning embers, and Wynne, who still wasn't quite ready to cast. Fewer would be injured or die if he helped disperse it, but it would leave Wynne terribly exposed for the moments it would take for him to do so.
Shale solved the dilemma by stepping over and punching the wraith for its efforts. The Legion had barely started to regroup when the wraith returned, mere feet in front of Malcolm. But the wraith's dark pits for eyes looked through Malcolm and at Wynne, as if Malcolm didn't even exist.
It'd caught on to who the real danger was and now headed straight for her, expecting Malcolm to scramble out of the way, like any reasonable being.
Panic seared through Malcolm when he realized the wraith's goal, and not just because Wynne was their only way to kill the wraith. If Rhys never recovered, then Wynne was one of their best hopes for recreating the cure. Even if the cure wasn't needed, Líadan would still find great comfort in Wynne's presence after being imprisoned in a Circle for so long.
So, he didn't budge.
When the wraith ran into him, Malcolm did his best to ignore that the wraith's body was a giant mouth with sharp teeth, which really never seemed possible with dust, but Thedas tended to prove his assumptions wrong at least twice a day. And while he didn't believe keeping himself between the wraith and Wynne to be a mistake, it certainly felt like it as the wraith sapped away his energy.
Then he felt himself picked up and set carefully aside. "It should have let me," said Shale as she whipped her fist through the wraith. It puffed into nothingness, giving them the briefest of respites.
"Well, you didn't seem to be lumbering your ass over fast enough." When Shale frowned at him, he quickly added, "And I wasn't thinking, just to be clear."
"That much is never in question." Shale turned to Wynne. "Is the elder mage ready to kill it? I have become bored with this adversary. It does not have enough substance to it for my smashing to be satisfying."
"I believe so," said Wynne. "Hold it off just a little longer, then give me a clear path to it when I say."
"We can do that," said Jeroen. Then he herded his scattered company back into formation. "Make a wall," he told them, "and no chasing after dusty ghosts this time. Make a wall for the wraith we need to make a hole for the mage who'll save our collective arses."
Oghren would've had a field day with that comment, and it was all Malcolm could do not to laugh as he got to his feet and shook the heaviness out of his limbs.
The wraith appeared just as Wynne shouted that she was ready. The Legion opened up and a blast of cold erupted from Wynne's her stave. Edges of it brushed against some of the Legionnaires' shoulders or weapons, leaving behind a coating of frost. The majority of the blast hit the wraith directly and froze it solid.
Which, Malcolm knew, meant it just needed to be shattered to be super especially dead. Both he and Shale eyed it, and then they both bolted for it.
They got there at the same time, his shield hitting one side and her fist the other, with Malcolm sliding just beneath Shale's fist. He grinned as the snowy wraith flakes fluttered around them, because it'd probably looked cool even though they hadn't planned it.
Jeroen took the quiet moment to take in the dusting of frozen wraith settling on the Deep Roads paving stones, pretty as glitterdust. "I think you got it," he said. "Deader'n a lost thaig."
The Legion began the process of returning their dead to the Stone while Malcolm and Wynne recovered. For the most part, it was Wynne doing the recovering while sitting on a rock with her eyes closed, while Shale stood nearby in case there were other nasty opportunists around. Meanwhile, Malcolm regained the energy the wraith had taken by grudgingly eating some of the dry rations that Leliana had packed.
He stopped chewing when he heard an almost-whisper, but it wasn't the one he'd have felt from approaching darkspawn. This whisper was different, like Sundermount. Not that the feeling was surprising, considering they'd just fought an ash wraith. Demons tended to get lost and wander where the Veil was thin.
"The Veil is thin here," said Wynne as she opened her eyes, confirming Malcolm's suspicion.
"Is it dangerous?" he asked. "I mean, for an extended period of time. Like, say, if we were to rest here for the night."
"I believe my spirit can keep me safe when I am not at full strength, as it has done before."
"I do not require sleep as weak creature of flesh do," said Shale. "And dwarves do not enter the Fade when they sleep." Her look fell to Malcolm. "It would be in the greatest danger."
"Though minimal, non-magical as I am," he said, which was true.
Wynne nodded in agreement. "Why do you ask?"
"Emrys said he'd be able to talk to me again if I slept in a place where the Veil was as thin as it was at Adamant. I think updating him would be prudent."
The corners of Wynne's mouth moved upward in the beginnings of a smile. "You're hoping he'll march on Kirkwall as soon as he hears?"
"Wouldn't you?"
"You may have a point."
When Jeroen returned from his tasks with his company, he agreed to their plan.
As Malcolm had half-suspected and half-hoped, Emrys waited for him in the Fade.
"It took you long enough," said Emrys.
He had no idea how he managed to forget after every time he saw Líadan's grandfather how trying he could be. "Because people routinely stumble into areas with a thin Veil?"
Emrys raised an eyebrow.
Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Fine, you have a point. People do. I just had a run of good luck not to stumble into one, for once. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that Knight-Commander Meredith is holding Líadan and Cáel and Ava in the Gallows."
Magic sprung to life around Emrys, a bluish-red light crackling along his body, a writhing reflection of his temper.
Malcolm decided that taking a step back would be wise, and did so.
Emrys closed his eyes. Only when his magic had faded, leaving only a mortal temper behind, did he open them again. "You must free her."
Malcolm reined in his impulse toward sarcasm, recognizing that Emrys might well kill him for it, and it would be justified, given the provocation. "I'm on my way there now, through the Deep Roads. We'll be emerging somewhere in the Planasene."
"I believe Keeper Lanaya's clan is there now, or should be arriving there soon. They were…" Emrys faltered, his eyes haunted beneath his seething temper. Then he recovered, even managing to set a little more of his temper aside.
Malcolm was increasingly convinced that Emrys wasn't entirely mortal.
"They were going to meet with the Mahariel," Emrys said evenly, "and then Líadan and Merrill and the children would have gone with them to meet with my clan."
"So you aren't there?" He did his best to wrestle his disappointment into submission. Not because he was overly fond of Emrys, but because it was hard to argue the power the old elf held. If anyone outside of Flemeth or the Maker or Andraste could singlehandedly defeat the massed templars of the Gallows, it would be Emrys.
"No. I am quite distant, which is why you must free her. I will not be there soon enough. It could take me a fortnight or longer to get there. That is too long."
"Damn." Malcolm finally let go of most of the hope he'd carried that Emrys would've just stepped into the Gallows and killed them all with a snap of his fingers, and then his family would be free. Now it was clear he'd have to do it himself, which would be much harder and take longer because of it. At least he had allies in the city. "All right. I think I can get her out. I know people in Kirkwall, and if I can't get them out with my friends helping me, then the Wardens will be sending their own angry horde to free them."
"Provided she is freed, it will suffice."
Something in Emrys' tone put Malcolm on the defensive, though it seemed to happen in every conversation they had. "I'm not letting her stay in there."
"I did not believe you would, human." But, before Malcolm could even consider basking in the rare vote of confidence from Emrys, the Keeper added, "Do not charge straight in. The goal is to free her, not get yourself jailed or killed and have her yet still be held prisoner. You will have one chance. Do not waste it, even if you must wait in order to form a strategy."
"I know. I'm not a hothead anymore." He scowled at Emrys yet again lifting a questioning eyebrow. "Well, not much of one. Not right now, because it would be stupid. Not to say that I haven't felt the impulse, but I haven't followed it, because it would lead straight to failure, and I can't fail. Líadan is in there, and our children are in there, and I'm going to get them out."
Emrys didn't manage to entirely hide his wince at the mention of Malcolm and Líadan's children. After all this time, it wasn't entirely fair for him to still have such a huge problem with them. It was clear that Emrys accepted Cáel more readily than he did Ava, and it'd always been that way. Malcolm knew why—because Cáel wasn't elf-blooded, and because the Dalish practically revered Flemeth, who just so happened to be Cáel's grandmother. The Dalish practically revered her, and Emrys knew that Cáel shared Flemeth's blood. Ava did not share the same. In fact, it was Ava's blood, her sodding shouldn't matter at all elf-bloodedness that practically condemned her in Emrys' eyes, even now. Yet, while Ava didn't have a drop of Flemeth's blood, Flemeth had a whole lot to do with how she came into being, and Emrys had no idea.
Malcolm decided it was time to right that wrong. "Did Líadan ever tell you what Flemeth had to do with Ava?"
He was immediately suspicious. "What do you mean?"
Like he'd thought, Emrys didn't know. "Keeper Marethari had some sort of debt to Flemeth. And Flemeth supposedly called in the debt, telling Marethari to add something to Líadan's tea when she visited with her. Something that would, in Flemeth's words, 'give fate a push,' whatever that means. The end result was Ava."
Emrys remained silent, his face even more inscrutable than usual.
Malcolm shrugged. "That's what Keeper Marethari told Líadan. Then there was that whole business with her helping you and everyone else out in the Fade with that demon, which gives credence to what Marethari said."
Emrys squinted and briefly looked around them. Then he said, "In light of this information, it would seem I must speak with Asha'belannar."
Having Flemeth's help would be awesome, Malcolm decided. And maybe Emrys could ask, if he could actually talk to her at will. "Who is she to you?"
Emrys' attention had wandered a little as Malcolm had spoken, and Malcolm's question had Emrys snapping back around to stare at him. "That is between Asha'belannar and me, which is more of an answer than you deserve."
"Has anyone ever told you that you suck at answers? I've noticed it's a Keeper thing. I haven't decided if it's learned or inherent."
Thankfully, Emrys seemed slightly amused instead of irritated with Malcolm's reply. "Perhaps not in such terms but, yes. Yes, I have been informed of such more than once. As I told the others, I will tell you: my answers are adequate. It is your mind that must seek to understand."
Even that wasn't an answer, but Malcolm didn't want to invite insults more than he already had.
"Go," Emrys said when Malcolm didn't reply. "Go free my granddaughter and her children. I will join you when I can."
Then Malcolm woke up to Wynne poking at his shoulder with her stave. He must've looked like he was having a nightmare, possibly a darkspawn kind. Wynne and others who had or did travel with him tended to wake him from as far away as possible if he was in the midst of one. Not that he could blame them. Waking from those could result in the grabbing of weapons. In Líadan's case, it'd involved the flinging of magic more than once.
"We can be out of the Deep Roads before midday," Wynne said once Malcolm pushed away the staff. "If you can manage to get yourself on your feet."
He didn't need to be told twice. Meeting with Emrys had taken and given hope, because in addition to the allies he had in Kirkwall, Lanaya's clan would be in the Planasene. They represented a couple hundred more people on his side, ready and willing to free his family. The hope put a new spring in his step as they marched through the Deep Roads, eager to get outside and that much closer to his family.
The Legion stayed at Deep Roads entrance as he and Wynne left, close enough to the open doors to catch the biting scent of snow.