Cullen wasn't sure what he was expecting when he went to the Hawke Estate the next morning, but he was fairly sure he wasn't expecting to be assaulted by the scent of fresh-baked sticky buns when Orana opened the front door, and he certainly didn't expect to find Amelle and Fenris sitting in the library deep in conversation over breakfast. Amelle, it appeared, had heard the jostling of his plate armor and was already looking up and smiling when he and Orana reached the door to the library.
"No need to announce Cullen, Orana. But it would be lovely if you could get him a plate and teacup. I doubt he's eaten yet."
"As a matter of fact," he began, "I—"
"Have not had one of Orana's buns in a mabari's age, and would be happy to partake in breakfast with us?" Amelle supplied, grinning.
He took a long look at her. Though she looked much improved compared to the day before — though Cullen would have been hard pressed to imagine how Amelle could possibly look worse than she had when she'd been pale and mana-drained, the dark streak of scarlet above her lip — there still existed the touch of a shadow beneath her eyes and she sat in a chair with a blanket draped over her legs. Still, this was an improvement. Good, he decided, and nodded.
"It would appear I'm in no position to argue with the young woman," he said to Orana, who in turn sent a small smile Amelle's way.
"I'll bring something right away, Mistress," she said, and bustled off.
Amelle waved a hand. "Take a seat on whatever you think won't collapse under the weight of all that armor, Cullen. We've been… talking." She fidgeted slightly with the teacup, then set it down gently in its saucer. "Fenris told me about Aveline. How is she this morning?"
Cullen sat gingerly upon what looked like an encouragingly sturdy chair and leaned forward. "As far as I've heard it, she did not suffer a relapse." But when Amelle's bright, triumphant smile formed, he sent her a stern look. "While I am as relieved as you are that Guard-Captain Aveline is once again well and in possession of her wits, you must understand how reckless that was, Amelle."
Grimacing, Amelle sent a strange look Fenris' way, then pulled a small plate bearing a half-eaten sticky bun to her lap and began to pick at it with a sigh. "Maker's arse, I bloody hate that word," she muttered under her breath. "Yes. That has been… impressed upon me."
"Repeatedly," Fenris said, sending Amelle a veiled look as he picked up his own cup and drank deeply from it.
She popped a piece of the bun in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, we're not any closer to discovering the cause of this illness."
"Or how it's spread," Cullen added. Orana came back into the room and he gratefully accepted the plate and teacup she handed him. He'd had a single cup of too-strong tea that morning — it was all he could stomach — but here the smell alone was enough to reawaken his flagging appetite.
"I've actually been giving some thought to that," Amelle said, grasping the teapot's handle and filling Cullen's cup before topping off both hers and Fenris'. "I don't think it's spreading like any… any normal disease. Like a cold. If it did, Donnic would be just as bad off as Aveline was — but he wasn't. Children are falling ill while their parents remain uninfected."
Cullen added a splash of milk to his tea and sipped; it was excellent. "Cassia was ill, but her husband was not."
"Exactly."
"None of us have exhibited any symptoms either," Fenris said, looking between Cullen and Amelle, but his gaze lingered a bit on Amelle as he added, "And you have spent more time than any of us around the inflicted."
Amelle made a face. "That's hardly a good indicator one way or the other, though. I'm rarely ill. Most of the time my body heals itself without bothering to involve my mind. It's unconscious and more or less constant."
Cullen frowned, pushing the teacup in a circle on its saucer with the end of one finger. "That may be true," he said, "but it doesn't account for Fenris. Or, I suppose, for me. But Fenris has spent nearly as much time as you in the clinic."
Fenris glowered when they both turned their gazes on him. "We are missing something," the elf said. "The symptoms in children appear the same. Adults vary. It is not natural."
"Thank the Maker not every adult took to the sickness the way Aveline did," Amelle said. "But you're not wrong. I know I'm only treating symptoms. And it's certainly not acting like any illness I've ever come across before. I still don't know enough… and research takes time. Time we absolutely do not have."
A shadow crossed her face, and Cullen knew without asking that she was contemplating the failure of the potion. He knew better than most how much hope she'd poured into the blighted thing. To distract herself—and them, perhaps—Amelle leaned forward and refilled teacups all around again, though Cullen had barely taken a sip or two from his cup, and by the time she sat back, cup firmly in hand, the shadow was gone and she was merely thoughtful again.
Thoughtful but still agitated, and the latter worried him more than he cared to admit.
"What do we know, anyway?" she asked, not quite rhetorically. "It's an illness that looks like illness in children, but not in adults. I find it hard to believe, however, that even Kirkwall has luck bad enough to have two separate illnesses plaguing it, so until it's proven otherwise, I think it's best we treat them as related."
"Children are weaker," Cullen offered. "Perhaps adults are better able to stave off the physical ailment?"
Amelle nodded. "That was my thought as well. Children will often fall sicker harder and faster than their parents, even if the parents do not escape the illness entirely. Maker, no two people even progress precisely the same way through a cold. Something… something tells me we won't discover anything about this—whatever it is—by trying to narrow down symptoms. So it has to be causes." She sent Cullen a pained look. "I—when the chantry—do you suppose there was anything in there other than smoke and ash and dust and stones? Something that might have gotten into the air?"
He was already shaking his head. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I might've been concerned about lyrium, but the stores of templar lyrium are kept at Templar Hall. They weren't…"
"In the chantry," Fenris finished.
"Could it be as simple as that, though?" Cullen pressed. "All of Kirkwall's been breathing the miasma of smoke and… and worse. Maker only knows what the effects of such a thing could be."
Amelle tapped her fingertips lightly on her blanket-covered thigh. "We might look at… at proximity, I suppose. See if the illnesses are worst around… around the damage. Your templars at the Gallows seem hardly touched at all, and the Gallows is furthest from the epicenter of… of what happened. But it's so hard to get an accurate picture. I… I wouldn't be surprised if there's a great deal more out there I'm simply not seeing. The denizens of Darktown—and Lowtown, even—were used to Anders and his clinic. No one from Hightown ever went to see him." Her fingers stopped abruptly, clenching the fabric. "Maker's balls, how many people are sick in Hightown that I don't even know about? How many have died? Why didn't I think of it sooner?"
"Because you were already overextending yourself with the those that found you," Fenris replied, his tone daring her to argue. "We all saw very well the effort you expended healing one person. You do not have the resources to individually heal everyone afflicted. You do not have the resources to heal anyone right now."
"I know that," she replied, too evenly. "But I'm not going to stop trying—"
"You are going to stop pushing yourself to the point of nosebleeds, however," Cullen said sternly. "If I hadn't been there to—"
"What was that, anyway?" Amelle asked, interrupting, her eyes flashing with momentary anger Cullen thought was rooted more in frustration than anything else. "Did you smite me?"
"I didn't need to," he replied. "You'd nearly done yourself in by that point. It was only a cleanse. I didn't do anything different from the night you healed Cassia. I… didn't expect you to go down the way you did, in truth."
"That would have happened even if you had not intervened, Knight-Commander," Fenris said evenly, sending Amelle a frown. "Amelle has pushed herself to such lengths at least one other time that I am aware of."
Cullen looked at Amelle; the way she was picking at the corner of the blanket told him all he needed to know, and he sighed. "Amelle. You cannot continue testing the limits of your mana like this."
"I know, but—"
"What good will you be to any of the people you want to help if you do yourself irreparable damage?" he argued. "It is dangerous for a mage to test their limits so frequently. Just because you are a spirit healer, that doesn't mean you're bloody invincible." In fact, Cullen knew spirit healers were at even greater risk than most other mages. The very thing that made them excellent healers — a closer connection to the Fade than other mages possessed — could also stand to be their greatest detriment. "Promise me you'll be more careful in the future."
Heaving a sigh, Amelle slumped a little in her chair and scowled into the cup. "I don't know what else to do."
"We are trying to figure out the cause, Amelle," Fenris said. "You have said yourself discovering a cure may prove easier once we discover a cause."
"All right. People weren't falling ill before… what happened. So let's consider proximity. Lowtown is nearly as far from… the site as the Gallows, and yet, Cullen, you and your templars haven't fallen ill." Amelle tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. "And you're quite sure none of your men have succumbed?"
"I'd like to think I'd know it if they had," Cullen replied. But Fenris was frowning, tapping his fingers against the table.
"Donnic said yesterday that more than half the guard are ill, did he not?" Before Cullen could reply, however, Fenris said, "And you, Knight-Commander, have been supplementing the guard with templars as a temporary measure. Whatever routes those sick guards walked, your men have been following those same patrols."
Cullen cradled the teacup in his hands and sipped, thinking hard. None of his men had been removed from duty — everyone was showing up for their shifts. Aside from the chaos going on in the city and all around him, Templar Hall was running with surprising smoothness. He shook his head. "I had to reprimand a few new recruits some time ago — before your sister left for Starkhaven, in fact." But then Cullen sat up a little straighter, recalling what Amelle had told him in the garden — that Kiara Hawke had likely been ill around the time she left Kirkwall.
Amelle was leaning forward, her teacup pushed aside, momentarily forgotten. "Reprimanded for what?"
"Excessive fighting," Cullen replied faintly. "Oh, Maker."
"But nothing has happened since?" Fenris asked.
Cullen shook his head, thinking back. "No, just that handful of recruits — and as far as exposure goes, they came from all over Kirkwall, Lowtown as well as Hightown."
Fenris' brows lowered into a pensive frown. "Then what is the difference between a templar recruit and one more established in the Order?"
"Well, time, obviously," Amelle said. "The recruits are new — they haven't had as much time to get used to the routine as the others." She pursed her lips into a hard line. "And these same recruits haven't had problems since?"
Cullen didn't answer; his mind was rushing like a river, not liking the answers being churned up. Amelle was right — templar recruits were newer to the Order than the other men. It was likewise true that those same recruits had less exposure to the day to day routines the rest of them were so, so familiar with. Sometimes, he feared on his darker days, to their collective harm.
"Cullen?" Amelle asked, prompting him. He swallowed hard, and looked at Fenris, nodding to indicate the white markings down his arms.
"Fenris. Your markings."
The elf went still, bristling slightly. "Yes?"
"They're… they're lyrium, aren't they?"
The look Fenris sent Amelle was dark, and just a little tinged with the betrayal of believing she'd been telling tales not hers to tell, but Cullen shook his head and said, "She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. I have seen you fight, and… though they are not magical in the same way Amelle's mana is magical, templars are… no strangers to lyrium. It is a different application, but the feel of it is similar enough to be recognizable."
This seemed to placate Fenris a little, but the elf still leaned forward, peering at Cullen through narrowed eyes. "What has this to do with anything?"
"Lyrium," Cullen said. "It's… it is perhaps the one thing the three of us have in common. Mages and templars ingest it—Maker knows you must be half-drowning in lyrium potion these days, Amelle; don't give me that look—and you've… got your markings, Fenris."
"You think lyrium grants some kind of immunity?" Amelle asked, a crease forming between her brows. "It doesn't entirely explain why Aveline was affected so strongly whilst Donnic seems virtually unharmed—unless he has a lyrium habit we none of us know about."
"I'm not saying there are no inconsistencies," Cullen said. "We cannot possibly tally the symptoms or lack thereof of every person in Kirkwall, but we know none of us is ill."
"Nor is Merrill," Fenris added. "And she has been in the clinic and near the unwell nearly as often as Amelle." Grimly, he added, "And she is no spirit healer. If she'd taken ill we would know it."
"No spirit healer and no stranger to lyrium," Amelle agreed, leaning back in her chair and sipping from her cup. She scowled down at tea that was no longer hot, and Cullen felt her reach out for the touch of magic she required to make the liquid hot again… and stop. He didn't know if it was his presence, or if she was only that conscious of preserving what strength remained to her, but instead of warming the tea, she set the cup aside and folded her hands in her lap before asking, "What else do we have in common?"
"Little enough." Fenris glowered at Cullen as though this was somehow his fault, but Cullen only shrugged and turned events over and over, looking for similarities.
"We all fought at the Gallows that night," Cullen said at last. "But so did Aveline."
"And I'm… I'm certain Kiara was not herself afterward," Amelle added softly. "Neither Varric nor Isabela seemed… well, they didn't seem anything like Aveline, but not everyone has been affected the same way." She put her head briefly in her hands and took a deep breath. "Maker's breath, did the lot of them run off to Starkhaven with plague in tow?"
Cullen thought about the potential repercussions if Amelle was correct and grimaced. "If their illness is due to exposure," he began, "then perhaps it's possible once they removed themselves from Kirkwall, those effects might have subsided?"
"A good point," Fenris said, looking back at Amelle, who still held her head in her hands. "Those here grow sicker. The opposite should hold true for anyone who leaves."
Lifting her head, Amelle let out a deep breath, but there was still a deep frown furrowed at her brow. "I suppose you're right. Still, it's hard not to worry." She turned to Cullen, saying, "You don't realize how… how mad she seemed. Not… violent like Aveline, but…" Amelle bit her bottom lip. "Overprotective. Beyond anything she'd ever been before, beyond anything I'd ever seen before."
Given what Cullen knew of Hawke, he had a difficult time finding himself surprised. The Champion was, without a doubt, fiercely protective of her younger sister. He himself had been on the receiving end of the hard, uncompromising fire in Kiara Hawke's eyes on one occasion, and it was a place he'd be happy never to revisit in all his remaining years.
"Is it not possibly, Amelle, you're… a bit too sensitive to your sister's—"
"She drew her bow on me, Cullen."
"W-what?" Cullen sputtered.
"Before Hawke left Kirkwall," supplied Fenris, "she and Amelle… argued."
A shadow settled upon Amelle's face as she lowered her eyes to the middle distance. "The morning of the memorial. She… didn't want me to go. She thought it would be too dangerous for me."
Cullen could not help blurting out, "And shooting you wasn't dangerous?"
Amelle still wouldn't meet his eyes, and began gathering the empty dishes and teacups onto their serving tray. "She said she'd be granting me the death wish she accused me of having."
"That's madness," he breathed.
"That is the point," interjected Fenris. "Hawke's behavior was… changeable. Uncharacteristically so. And never more so than the days before her departure."
Having gathered all the dishes together on the tray, Amelle pushed the blanket aside and stood to move it to the sideboard. She seemed somewhat wobbly on her feet and just as Cullen was about to offer his help, Fenris was on his feet, taking the tray from her hands with a reproving glare. Amelle met the elf's look steadily and shook her head. Fenris' glare turned into a scowl and he jerked his chin at the seat she'd just vacated. With a sigh, Amelle sat again, looking both chastened and oddly sheepish.
Interesting, he thought to himself.
"She had good days and bad," said Amelle, pulling the blanket back over her legs. "Just like Aveline."
As Fenris returned to the table, Cullen looked up at him. "So what turns people mad?" he asked them both.
The look Amelle sent him was a dour one. "It's bloody Kirkwall. How much time have you got?"
"Amelle is… not wrong," Fenris said, glancing over at her. Their expressions were similarly shadowed and for a moment Cullen wasn't sure he wanted to know what exactly had happened to make them look that way.
Before the silence became too heavy, Fenris said, "Quentin." The next name came out as a low growl: "Grace."
Cullen was less acquainted with the first name beyond the basic — and gruesome — facts, he was far more familiar with the second. But Amelle was already shaking her head.
"I daresay they were both quite mad long before that night," said Amelle, a scowl marring her face. "As much as I would be content to condemn and blame them both for all of this… the timing just isn't right. So whatever made every sodding mage lose their blighted mind—" And Cullen found himself quietly shocked at the vehemence in her tone. "—present company excepted, I hope, it isn't what's making people go mad now."
Fenris' frown didn't abate as he asked, "In their cases was it madness at all, or simply… their nature?" Amelle's answering grimace indicated she thought considering the difference between the two was truly distasteful.
"You're both forgetting," Cullen broke in, drumming his fingers on the table and wishing the tea was still hot, "whatever this is, it isn't affecting mages."
"And the unpleasant fact remains that anyone can be driven mad, with the right — or wrong, as it were — application of pressure. Not just mages." Amelle rubbed her hand hard across her mouth in thought. "Though, to my endless chagrin, mages do take up the lion's share of examples."
Cullen frowned and leaned back in the chair. It creaked softly and he cursed the heavy plate. Amelle was right, of course — Kirkwall had experienced a shocking surplus of blood mages in recent years, each one madder than the last. And though it seemed strange — to say nothing of running entirely counter to his training — to admit it, this was something… different. "But we're talking about very specific conditions here. I doubt you'd have been able to cure Grace's madness the same way you were able to cure Aveline's."
"A very specific madness?" she asked lightly, brows lifting. "Very well then — let's consider Meredith. She was bloody barking mad by the end, and don't tell me she wasn't."
The truly frightening thing, Cullen thought, was that Fenris and Amelle didn't know the half of it. They'd seen only Meredith's largest and maddest actions. They didn't know the smaller, subtler things. They hadn't seen the day to day madness, ever more cruel and fearful and unreasonable. They didn't know about the recruits beaten to within an inch of their lives "because maleficarum won't hold their blows." They didn't know about withheld rations ("The Maker's grace is nourishment enough for the truly righteous."), or punishments so severe Cullen had been forced to step in behind Meredith's back to keep templars from irreparable injury. Or death. ("What is earthly punishment, Knight-Captain? They will emerge stronger, more capable, better able to do the Maker's just work. It is wrong to interfere with that.") They didn't know half those punishments were meted out for crimes that would have earned Cullen a slap on the wrist from Greagoir—and Greagoir had been a stern and uncompromising commander.
Long tours of duty on the Wounded Coast were nothing, when all was said and done. Meredith had been nothing if not inventive toward the end.
Too inventive. "She was," Cullen said carefully. "But much as I'd like to blame that madness on illness—even this illness—I don't think we can. It… went on too long. And grew beyond all reason once she obtained that… sword."
"She was corrupted by the idol," Fenris said. "Just as Bartrand was before her. It was a dark thing, and ought never to have been removed from the thaig."
Amelle twisted her hands together until her knuckles went white. "The… trouble with Meredith began before she ever had the idol in her possession, though. At least as long as we've been in Kirkwall, she was always… intractable. And prone to harsh measures."
Cullen grimaced. "I don't disagree, Amelle, but… at one time she was at least rational. Believe what you will, but in the beginning she truly believed she was acting in Kirkwall's best interests."
"Right," Amelle agreed, "but that's what I mean. You didn't know Bartrand, but when we met him he was… perhaps a little shifty." Fenris snorted, but Amelle only rolled her eyes at him and continued, "He wasn't outright paranoid in the beginning—not the way he ended up—or Kiara would never have agreed to the expedition in the first place, no matter how much we needed the money. Something about that idol… changed him."
"I do not think it was change so much as it was exacerbation of traits that were already present, but kept under control," Fenris said.
"Exactly right," Amelle declared. "It removed inhibitions and amplified whatever was underneath. Bartrand was a greedy, paranoid little bugger, but he would never have succeeded in business if that was all anyone ever saw. It's just… there's a reason that only the dwarves can mine lyrium. It's not supposed to affect them the way it affects creatures with a capacity for magic use. For it to have acted so quickly and with such potency? Maker, I shudder to contemplate how mad Meredith—or even the rest of the templars—could have become, exposed to it over time."
Cullen did shudder at the thought, and found himself oddly grateful for all the time spent tramping about the Wounded Coast. To think, Meredith had been doing him a bloody favor all along. "Be that as it may, it isn't always blood magic or items of dubious origin that induce madness. We've already dismissed the possibility of the illness being magical in origin—if nothing else, I'm certain I'd feel that kind of sorcery at work. Nor, I think, am I willing to believe even Kirkwall has luck bad enough to see two such objects as that cursed idol brought within its walls. And we all saw the end of that sword. It is most certainly gone."
Fenris nodded. "Indeed. Things that explode in such a fashion are, thankfully, well beyond repair. Or retrieval."
Cullen felt the quick, uncontrolled burst of Amelle's magic, but even as he reached for his will to dissipate it, she smothered it herself. The fire in the hearth leapt energetically before dimming again, almost sheepishly. Amelle, however, had gone entirely too pale. Fenris half-rose from his seat before she waved him back down into it.
"Amelle? Are you—"
"Maker," she whispered, staring down at the hands weakly curled in her laps. "Oh, Maker."
"What is it?" Cullen asked, fairly sure he didn't want to know. When Amelle lifted her gaze to his, her eyes wider and more horrified than he could ever remember them being—and it seemed as though he'd had all too many occasions to see her eyes wide and horrified of late—Cullen was absolutely positive he didn't want to know.
"What was it you just said, Cullen?" At his perplexed look, she said, "You just said it: All of Kirkwall's been breathing the miasma of smoke and worse."Her hands curled tighter in her lap until her knuckles were stark white, and he could still see them trembling. "What would the effects be?"
"Lowered inhibitions," Fenris said quietly, and clearly hating the conclusions being drawn just as much as Cullen did. "Exacerbation of whatever… traits lie beneath."
"When we first came to Kirkwall, Aveline had to work hard to find a place in the guard. But even after she found it, she… she worried about losing her men's respect."
"When we found her in the barracks the other day, she was…" Fenris paused, choosing his words with care, "accusing Guardsman Renlan of insubordination."
"And what of the young man you were healing in the clinic the day I came down to see you? Marlin? He'd broken his arm falling off the roof while spying on his neighbor's wife."
"Cassia," Amelle breathed. "She accused a customer of cheating her. She would never have done such a thing normally. And Marlin — Maker, I couldn't believe it when he told me what happened. It was so…"
"So unlike him?" Cullen finished for her. Amelle nodded miserably.
Fenris was watching Amelle carefully, his brow knitted in concern — though whether it was concern for the mage or concern for the situation, Cullen wasn't entirely sure. Then the elf twisted in his seat. "If the… remains of the sword have gone into the air somehow, and are responsible for this illness, that may explain why you have not sensed it, Knight-Commander. The dust is likely too fine."
"Corrupted," Amelle added distantly.
Cullen frowned, asking, "Who's corrupted?"
Amelle shook her head. "The sword. The idol. Whatever. The lyrium was corrupted. I'm not sure by what — age, perhaps. Maybe even the darkspawn taint. But that wasn't just regular lyrium."
Cullen digested this information as he attempted to put the rest of his thoughts in order. "All right. Assuming Meredith's sword is the culprit, and we've all been breathing the dust of a corrupted lyrium idol, the question is this: what can we do about it? Because I suspect not-breathing, while effective, might lose its charm after a while."
Amelle shook her head again, this time more decisively. "It doesn't make sense. It's been weeks. The air is… the air is clear again. No matter how fine the dust was, it must have settled by now. If breathing it in caused the problem, we should have seen a spike in the behavior and then an ebb. But things aren't… ebbing."
"Could it not linger in the system after inhalation?" Fenris asked.
Amelle shrugged but didn't look convinced. "If… if we're dealing with that blighted idol, the Maker only knows what it can do. But if I've learned anything as a healer, it's how resilient the body is. It actively works against illness. I have a hard time imagining things getting worse and worse. Unless—"
Amelle did not have time to finish her hypothesis. Cullen felt magic being gathered the instant the door flew open and he gathered his will, but Amelle sent him a panicked look and said, "Cullen, don't! You'll get me, too."
Startled, Cullen let the cleanse dissipate, just in time to see the little dark-haired elf mage run in, eyes wild. "I'm so sorry, Amelle," she said, "Orana wanted me to wait for you to finish, but I can't. You—I need you."
"She is not well," Fenris retorted. Cullen was a little alarmed to see the his tattoos take on a soft, faint glow, even though the templar was… more or less certain the elf mage was considered an ally.
"I know," the girl said miserably. "But Fenris…"
"She has nothing to give, Merrill," Fenris pressed. "For all she might wish to—"
"Fenris," Amelle said warningly. "Perhaps you might let me participate in the conversation, at least?"
He snarled something under his breath in a language Cullen didn't know, and the glow of his tattoos dimmed.
Dimmed, but did not go out entirely.
"Tell me," Amelle said.
Merrill wrapped her thin arms tightly around herself. "There are so many, Amelle." Tears filled her eyes, spilling over to run down her tattooed cheeks. "I tried. I really tried. But there are no more healing potions, not one, and I haven't had time to make more, and the beds are all full—"
"It's okay, Merrill," Amelle soothed, rising unsteadily to her feet. Before Cullen could offer a stabilizing arm, Fenris stepped in and put an arm around her waist. She leaned against his side, but her grateful smile dimmed when she saw the expression on his face. It was not pleased. It was, in fact, just a shade shy of mutinous.
"Oh, Amelle," Merrill whispered, tears still dripping. "I shouldn't have come. You're sick. I'm not a healer and even I can see you are not well."
"I'm not going to do magic," Amelle said. Fenris glowered as though he didn't believe her. "But maybe we can try something else."
"What?" he growled.
"Lyrium," she said. "If it works for us… if it's given us some kind of immunity against the corruption…"
Cullen bowed his head. "Amelle, it's incredibly risky. It's unstable. It's addictive."
"It's better than dying," she replied simply.
Together they all made their way down to the clinic, but Cullen could hear the low moans — a chorus punctuated by the high, thin cries of sick children — and when he looked over at Amelle, it was in time to see her wince.
"You did well to come get me, Merrill," she said as Fenris descended the ladder in time to assist Amelle down.
Merrill looked marginally reassured, but took one peek down the ladder and made a face. "Somehow I don't think Fenris agrees with you."
Amelle gave the girl a small smile as she lowered her voice and began climbing down. "Fenris will get over it."
Somehow Cullen wasn't entirely convinced of that.
Once inside the clinic, Cullen saw the full force of what had sent Merrill upstairs to begin with, and to be perfectly honest, he couldn't say he blamed her a bit. Indeed, every bed was occupied, and every bed held upon it a patient varying in age from one to the next. The youngest was an infant whimpering weakly in his mother's arms. Even Fenris looked startled and troubled, and if there had been any lingering light emanating from his markings, that sight alone was enough to douse it.
Most were so miserable that even if they noticed the sigil upon his breastplate, and even if they feared repercussions for seeking illegal magical aid, they could do little more than bow their heads and pretend he simply wasn't there.
Amelle took a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding once as if to herself. "All right. Merrill, tell me who's worst off." When Merrill indicated a small, feverish girl at the far end of the clinic, Amelle gave an authoritative nod, then turned to Fenris. "Fenris, would you please run upstairs for me? I have a small chest of potions under my bed. Bring them all down with you. Cullen?" She looked over at him. "What do you know about potions?"
"Very little beyond drinking them, I fear."
She pointed to the windowboxes at one side of the room. "Start picking elfroot. You and Merrill are going to make a batch of healing potions."
He looked down into the elf girl's face. There were still tears upon her cheeks, but she was pulling herself together — or making a fair attempt of it, at any rate — and she offered him a tentative smile.
"I'll show you how it goes. It's easier with help." She tilted her head and frowned at his gauntlets. "Those might get in the way, though. And they'll bruise the plants."
Keeping an eye on Amelle — she'd sent Fenris upstairs, and Cullen wasn't completely convinced she wasn't going to at least try and summon even a flash of magic in his absence — Cullen followed Merrill to the windowbox, following her lead as she picked through the lush elfroot plants. Behind them, Amelle walked slowly along each line of beds, checking in briefly with everyone, though it was clear where her steps were headed. When she reached the bed Merrill had indicated, she sat down on the edge, running her fingers along the little girl's fever-damp forehead, pushing back the pale curls plastered to the skin. He could see the thoughts crossing Amelle's face — her quick glance at the door, first to check for Fenris, and then to wonder if she had enough time, enough mana, to force out just one more healing.
Evidently Fenris was already anticipating that Amelle might have had other motives in mind for sending him out of the clinic entirely, and he returned in next to no time at all, bearing the chest she'd indicated. She smiled and waved him over, and while Cullen was relieved the elf had returned before Amelle could entertain any more mutinous thoughts, he found himself increasingly worried for the patients who had come to see the healer — some of whom had been waiting too long already.
There was little enough she could do for them. He knew it, even if she refused to see the truth written in her still-shaky hands and the bruises like wounds beneath her eyes. Merrill was attempting to explain something to him, but he wasn't listening—he couldn't listen. Amelle's hand ghosted over her little patient's brow. Cullen narrowed his eyes, waiting for the telltale thrum, waiting for the silver-blue glow to begin.
He gathered his will.
And Merrill put her hand on his forearm, startling him. He nearly smote her out of reflex. "Sorry," she said softly. She sounded sorry, as though she was the one not paying attention and had anything to feel sorry for. "It's just… the potion won't work if you're not careful. The leaves are very delicate."
He glanced down at the pile of verdure in front of him, and then to a similar pile in front of the elf. Merrill's leaves had been neatly removed from their stems. Cullen's looked as though someone had chewed heartily on them and then spat the result back out onto the table.
"I think I ought to leave this to you," Cullen replied. He didn't think he was imagining it when Merrill's expression turned grateful. Amelle was now rooting through the box of potions, Fenris glaring down at her. Most of the clinic's patients were ignoring Cullen completely.
There were too many of them. Too many of them and not nearly enough of her.
Cullen was a soldier. He had known battlefields enough. This was just another one.
He knew how to make his voice carry, and when he spoke it was clear without being a shout, but still loud enough that everyone—everyone—looked at him.
"Those of you with broken bones, with cuts or scrapes, come see me. Anyone whose wounds are irritating but not life-threatening, go home. And if you have sick children, stay. Wait. Be patient."
For a moment no one spoke. Even Amelle only gazed at him, unblinking, until the child she was tending to whimpered. When she glanced away, Cullen met Fenris' eyes and shook his head. The elf nodded. He mightn't be a templar, mightn't have a templar's unique skills, but he knew Amelle.
And even distracted, Cullen could will a cleanse, or—Maker forbid—a smite before Amelle could do herself yet more damage.
A young man with a broken leg was first to stumble to Cullen's table.
Cullen was a soldier. He had known battlefields enough. He knew enough of wounds and injuries to keep a person alive. He knew how to set a bone. He knew how to stitch a wound shut. His patients would have uglier, lumpier scars, but they wouldn't die.
And they wouldn't sap any of Amelle's flagging strength. So he set bones. He stitched wounds shut. He waited for Amelle to falter.
True to her word, she didn't touch her magic. He didn't know if it was choice or necessity at this point; whenever he hazarded a glance her way, her face was pinched and troubled and paler than it had any right to be. She appeared to be mixing things together from her stash of bottles. The child whined weakly, and the child's mother wouldn't—or couldn't—cease weeping and pleading and begging.
He was certain one of the potions she was mixing shone with the telltale blue sheen of lyrium potion. He felt his stomach twist at the thought, and every templar sensibility that had ever been hammered into him pushed for him to rise and knock the blighted bottle from Amelle's hands.
Instead, he bound up a sprained wrist. And then closed a long, shallow gash in a young woman's forehead, product of a cast-iron pan applied in fury by a jealous friend.
"Amelle," Fenris murmured, his voice low but still cutting through all the extraneous noise. "Are you certain…"
"Of course not," she replied. "How could I be? But she's burning up, Fenris. If I don't do anything…" Amelle trailed off and her expression became only more twisted with frustration. "If I don't do anything, she'll die for sure. If I do this, she might not. Nothing else works on this fever. Tell me, please, what are my options?"
If Fenris was surprised at Amelle's anger — frustration and vehemence were conspiring to make her voice rough and ragged — he didn't show it. But neither did he appear to envy Amelle's decision. Tipping the young patient's head back, she coaxed a small dose of whatever potions she'd mixed together down the girl's throat. Keeping one hand on the child's forehead, gently stroking her hair, Amelle waited.
As Cullen set and splinted a broken finger, he heard the other patients whispering and murmuring amongst themselves.
Healer's not lookin' so good herself. Wonder if she's sick with this blighted plague.
I heard it from Lirabell when she brought her girl to see the healer, she used magic. Lots of it. Said she'd never seen such light, Lirabell said. Ain't so much as a flicker now.
Did you know they're lockin' people up? Them ones so sick it's making them mad? Locked up in the dungeons, I heard.
I think it's the Veil too thin — all those people dyin' in the chantry? Bet their spirits're restless. Makin' us all mad and sick.
What's that potion she's givin' wee little Mina? Where's the magic?
The child didn't expire, but neither did she seem to rally. As Cullen's own patients dwindled, Amelle gave the child a second dose of potion and waited, watching, never moving and never pulling her eyes from the girl's face. Fenris seemed unable to remain so still, and he moved restlessly about the clinic, ostensibly to tend various areas of the clinic, but he couldn't even concentrate on rolling a simple bandage without looking back at Amelle. He paced the length of the long room before venturing to Cullen's table. Neither spoke. Cullen, for his part, wasn't sure what he could say.
After a third dose, the child's cries ceased and she slipped into a light sleep. Her mother was relieved, but the flush of color hadn't faded from the child's cheeks. If anything, Amelle looked more worried. Cullen stitched a knife wound earned during, not a fight, but what sounded like an ill-conceived tavern game.
"I had not thought anything could be worse than watching her willingly drain her mana," Fenris murmured softly, folding his arms and watching Amelle.
Cullen exhaled a soft huff of mirthless laughter. "There are always worse things."
Fenris sent him a querying look, but at that moment Amelle's hand froze upon the girl's brow, and her head dropped forward in such a fashion that she looked eerily like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. Was it an attitude of intense relief, or…
"Go see," Cullen started to say, but the elf was already halfway across the clinic. Then Amelle lifted her head and looked at Fenris and Cullen saw, not triumph, but aching sorrow in the healer's face. Her eyes had spilled over with tears and she pressed her hand hard to her mouth, though her shoulders were already beginning to shake.
Oh, Maker. Oh, no…
Cullen wasn't sure if it was his own thoughts he heard, or the sudden, keening cry of the girl's mother.
He had a moment to take a breath—only a moment—and then the world went mad.
Cullen was used to the world going mad. He wished he wasn't so damned used to the world going mad.
He was a soldier. This was a battlefield. He wasn't planning on seeing his side take any casualties.
He knew exactly what it looked like when a spark set off a—
Remembering stone and ash and screams—The children are crying, ser. Can't you hear them crying? They're crying for me. Ser, can't you hear them?—Cullen crushed the thought violently. A heartbeat had passed. Only a second. Perhaps two. Fenris was just reaching Amelle's side; the child's mother was screaming, and that scream was walking the very fine line between grief and rage.
And then Cullen heard it. It was a whisper, one of the same hushed voices that had been speaking only a moment before, but this time it said: What'd she give the girl? Don't seem right. Why heal some and not t'others? She's got magic. She's got to heal us!
Cullen heard the words unspoken as well. What good is she if she's not healing us?
From there it was a very, very short step to the only good mage is a dead mage. He knew that well enough. He'd said it himself. He'd meant it.
He felt magic gathering. Amelle's he recognized; it was too much. He didn't know if she intended a defensive spell or more mad healing, but he knew—somehow he knew—no matter what she cast now would drain her utterly. Perhaps irreversibly. Perhaps ruinously. The other magic he found vaguely familiar, and realized it must be Merrill. Before he could disrupt both, he felt Merrill's magic slip through the air, and Amelle began to slump, her own magic snapped like a thread. Fenris pulled the healer into his arms, lifting her as easily as a child might carry a doll. One of the bolder men stepped toward them, brow already darkening with rage, but then, before he could so much as open his lips, he crumpled to the floor, snoring.
Cullen wrapped one hand around the hilt of his blade, praying he would not have to draw it. "Stop!" he commanded. Everyone stopped. They were used to listening to templars, after all. He still had that much power. Things had not progressed to the level of lunacy where they were comfortable defying him. A few gazed at him balefully, but no one disobeyed. Fenris didn't look back; the command was not intended for him. He had to know the only place that might be halfway safe was the estate, and he was across the room and through the clinic door before anyone realized he'd taken Amelle with him.
The mother, curled over her dead child, still wailed. Cullen's heart ached for her. But there was nothing, nothing he could do.
"Merrill," he barked. She jumped half a foot before stumbling to his side, her eyes never leaving the tableau of mother and child. He gestured toward the sleeping man with his chin. "That was you?"
She nodded, her eyes enormous. "I—I'm sorry—I—"
"Can you do it again?"
Her eyes flickered to her arms, and he saw the faint tracework of scars there. None of them looked fresh; even the newest were pink fading to white. Then she clenched her hands into fists and said, "I'm not very strong. I could have—but—I'm not strong enough to—not everyone. Not anymore."
"If anyone comes at us. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want them to hurt us, either."
Merrill nodded, her hands closing into small fists at her sides.
He realized what a mad picture the two of them made — templar and, unless he missed his guess, rehabilitating blood mage, side by side — but the world was in the throes of insanity, so perhaps it was somewhat appropriate for the situation. Cullen stood up a little straighter and squared his shoulders. He knew his height put him at an advantage — as much as the armor he wore. If nothing else, Cullen knew he had their attention now.
"You must return to your homes," he said, letting his voice fill the large room. "The clinic is to be considered closed until—"
A ripple went through the small crowd. They exchanged looks, but when their eyes focused on him, all Cullen saw was a sea of stormy faces. They were angry. Worst of all, they were afraid. Anger and fear seldom mixed well, he knew. There were times when anger could push you through your fear, but other times, particularly in groups even this size, it was fear that fed anger, making it toxic. Dangerous. Volatile.
"Consider the clinic closed for the immediate future," he said, his voice firm as he reiterated the order.
"Closed?" a voice cried out, ragged with impatience and indignation. "You mean the healer's just going to let us all die down here? Let our children die?"
Cullen felt ill, his own anger surging up within him. They didn't know. They didn't understand.
"She's just a high-born Hightown bitch is what she is," another spat. "Comes down 'ere all high and mighty to slum with us so she can feel better about 'erself." A few jeers rose up at this statement and Cullen shot Merrill a glance from the corner of his eye. The elven girl looked positively wretched. He couldn't blame her.
"It ain't like she cares what happens to the lot of us. If she did, she'd heal us."
"That's right! The last healer—"
"Stop!"
Cullen jerked, startled, and turned to stare down at Merrill. The girl's eyes were still wet with tears, but now the cheeks stained with teartracks were also pink with anger.
"Stop it right now!" Merrill yelled, her hands clenching tighter as she addressed the people milling around them. Her voice wavered as she spoke, but still she spoke loudly and clearly. Anger pushing through fear, he thought. He only hoped what Merrill had to say wouldn't make the crowd angrier.
Merrill rose her voice until it shook with either effort or emotion. "Amelle Hawke has been down in this clinic night and day healing you, healing your children," her voice broke on the last syllable as she cast a sorrowful glance at the grieving mother, "since this illness began. She has foregone food and rest. When she isn't here, she's been trying to find a potion, a cure for you all. You must understand. A mage's power i-is not— is not infinite. She has worked herself to exhaustion for you all. And if she is not using your magic to heal, it is because she can't."
Members of the crowd exchanged looks ranging from the stubbornly angry to the shamefaced to the slightly sheepish.
"We will find a cure for this plague," Cullen said, wishing he felt so confident. "But you must—"
"What about her?" a man shouted, thrusting a meaty finger at Merrill. "She's a mage! Why can't she heal us?"
Merrill bit her lip and shook her head, braids swinging slowly. "I am no healer," she answered soberly. "I-I am Amelle's friend. And I help her where I can. But I am not a healer." She swallowed hard and shifted her stance, holding her arms behind her back.
"You must return to your homes," Cullen told them all, stepping forward. "Merrill speaks the truth. Amelle Hawke hasn't the strength or mana to heal all of you right now and she cannot continue to heal you as she has been. More attempts to do so will only be to her detriment." And yours, he added silently.
"Please," Merrill pleaded. "Just give her a little time."
"In the meantime, basic injuries will be treated in Templar Hall." After all, Cullen wasn't the only soldier in Kirkwall who knew how to stitch a wound. And he knew the reproachful look Amelle would give him if he told her he'd shut down her clinic without giving people another option.
Slowly, and seeming to mutter darkly under its collective breath, the crowd left, filtering slowly through the large clinic doors. Merrill hurried to the dead child's mother and helped her wrap the child in a sheet. A shroud. Another pyre to be built. A small one. The small ones were always the worst.
Cullen sat down hard on a nearby table until the weeping woman left and Merrill approached him, looking nervous, as if he might smite her just for the sport of it now the clinic was empty.
"I-I'm sorry about that," she said, looking down. "I probably should've kept quiet. Normally I do. Well. Normally I do when there are so many people listening. It's when there aren't as many people listening that I tend to ramble. I do that. Rambling. I… I'm doing it now, aren't I? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"If you'd not said anything, they very likely would have turned on us," Cullen said simply.
Merrill nodded, but looked unconvinced. "I just couldn't— I couldn't bear to hear…" She swallowed hard. "Amelle… is my friend. She's— she's helping me. She's been helping me." Merrill wrapped an arm around herself, clutching one hand around the thin forearm opposite. "You know what I am. I saw it in your face just then. I… it's not been easy," she said, indicating the scars. "But… things are better than they were." She looked as if she wanted to say more, but evidently remembering what she'd said about her rambling, Merrill snapped her mouth shut and she looked away again, scuffing her foot against the floor.
Cullen had never heard of a blood mage that had ever rehabilitated himself—or herself. Once a blood mage, always a blood mage — that's what his training told him. But telling Merrill that — particularly now — seemed needlessly cruel.
And now he was concerned with hurting a blood mage's feelings. The world was indeed mad.
"We should go back upstairs," he said. "Check on Amelle."
Merrill began to nod, but then she frowned and shook her head instead. "No. Better if I stay down here and finish blending those potions." At Cullen's curious look, Merrill grew sheepish. "Fenris… doesn't much care for me. And Amelle doesn't need a cranky Fenris on top of everything else right now."
Cullen was fairly certain Fenris was bound to be cranky no matter who was present, but he didn't say so aloud. Instead, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and said, "I assume Amelle's given you a key. Lock yourself in when I go, and lock the door behind you later. Don't open it for anyone except Amelle, Fenris or myself. It will take some time for news of the clinic's closure—and what happened to bring it about—to spread. If things get bad enough…"
"I'll come upstairs," Merrill agreed. "I'm not that frightened of a cranky Fenris." She bit her bottom lip. "Well, I am, really. He can be very scary. He can do the most alarming things, and always with such a scowl. You know, this one time—oh. There I go again."
He couldn't quite bring himself to smile—The children are crying, ser. Can't you hear them crying? They're crying for me. Ser, can't you hear them?—but he did rise and place a hand lightly on the elf's shoulder. He felt her jump. "You did well," he said. "You kept your head. You didn't… you did well. I'll make sure Fenris knows."
Merrill ducked her head, but not before he saw the faint blush overspreading her cheeks. "I didn't do anything."
"Nevertheless."
She raised her eyes to meet his, expression puzzled. "I haven't met any other templars like you. Mostly they just grimace and growl and threaten, especially mages. Quite a lot like Fenris, really. He would probably make a very good templar. Are there elven templars?"
"I… don't think so, no."
"That's too bad. But maybe you could make an exception. After all, you're not a very usual sort of templar yourself, are you?"
He huffed a mirthless chuckle. "I suppose I'm not."
She nodded as if this explained everything, ducking out from beneath his hand to return to her elfroot and her potions. "Amelle's lucky to have a friend like you."
Cullen paused at the door. Then he turned back and cleared his throat. Merrill raised her eyes, though her hands kept stirring. "Merrill, Amelle's lucky to have a friend like you, too."
"Oh, Creators, you'll make me blush—" she did blush then, but quickly looked aghast. "Wait. I'm supposed to swear by something else. Body parts of the sad girl in the chantry. Andraste's… well, I won't say the dirty ones Isabela's always going on about. Andraste's fingernails? Ooh, Andraste's kneecaps! Kneecaps are nice and sturdy, and you wouldn't be able to walk without them. I'm sure she had very holy kneecaps, that Andraste."
Cullen blinked. "I'm sure she did."
"Tell Amelle… tell her… I swear by—by Andraste's kneecaps I'll make as many potions as I can. And tell her… to be careful. She needs to be careful."
Inclining his head, Cullen left the mage to her work, closing the door firmly behind him. He'd half expected stragglers, but the tunnels outside the clinic were empty. With a heavy sigh, he doused the light above the door, and headed up through the secret passage, back to the estate.
