All Fall Down
By: SurreptitiousFox245
Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls. Wish I did, but my broke self kinda renders that a moot point.
Quick Author's Note: Twists...twists, evil, evil twists. This is one of my milestone moments for this story, hence why the chapter is a tad shorter than the norm. But I hope I kinda throw you for a loop.
I took some creative freedoms with making up a historical event. Nothing major. And by "trauma bonding" I'm subtly referencing Stockholm Syndrome because that's always fun to have in a story (sarcasm totally intended).
Chapter 17
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword."
-Oscar Wilde, The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
~Thedas – 9:41 Dragon~
Being left behind in camp was both a blessing and a curse. Just that morning, Alan had packed up himself, Solas, Varric, Blackwall, Dorian, and the scouts to make their way to Redcliffe, blatantly ignoring you in the process. Which suited you just fine, as you were also choosing to not acknowledge he existed. Perhaps it was childish, but you were past caring. The anger was too strong.
You weren't quite ready to admit that the anger was at yourself more than at the Herald—he was an easier target.
Anyway, as you hadn't accepted the responsibility of leading the scouts and you and Alan weren't on speaking terms after your argument, you had stayed to mind the tents on the off chance a nonexistent bandit decided to pillage the campsite. It wasn't going to happen, so your "job" was a moot thing, but it made you feel better than owning up to the fact that you were stuck doing nothing productive for the next gods-only-knew how long due to your own stubbornness.
Err…Alan's stubbornness, you meant. Alan's.
So once Saffron, the only horse to have been left behind, was properly fed and watered, you sat down at a table in the main tent, pulled out the two cultist amulets and your chicken-scratch journal, and began brainstorming.
Nothing about any of it made sense. Leliana couldn't find anything, Dand couldn't find anything, Bull even looked and couldn't find anything. The only concrete bit of knowledge anyone managed to gather was that the cultists wearing the amulets, the ones Alexius apparently had in Redcliffe in bulk, were not themselves Venatori. They were part of some other nameless group, but other than them being a separate entity that was currently working closely with the Tevinter supremacists, the trail was cold.
It explained the lack of mages, but not the presence of Blight, their few numbers, location, or why in the world non-mages would have a paralysis ward guarding them. According to Solas, paralysis was not an easy glyph to master, definitely not for amateurs or novices, much less non-mages. It quite literally had no place being there. You would have suggested that the ward had been meant to keep the cultists in and not keep others out. The other tunnel, however, rendered that argument null.
You just didn't understand, and that ate at you. The only things you knew for certain was that these people worshipped a dragon, presumably weren't mages, had a thing for the color orange, and apparently were not adverse to the idea of becoming blight-infested ghouls. They had grey in their robes—Grey Wardens? Ones that refused to acknowledge their Calling?
No. Where were the mages if that was the case? Not all of them were old enough to experience a Calling, either—a few were barely teenagers. Worshiping a dragon might fit, but if they were really from Tevinter like everything pointed to, then it fit regardless. The one thing that kept stubbornly resurfacing was the ward. It was the most out-of-place, and you had a nagging feeling that it was the key to whatever it was you were missing.
You and Solas had discussed it at length before the others had arrived, and he came to the same conclusion. Beyond recognizing it as paralytic, he claimed to be unable to place the magic as one style or another. And the only reason you both even knew that much was because it had quite obviously paralyzed you. Glyphs and wards could be silent, which also indicated that the one you triggered had doubled as an alarm of sorts.
It was smart. It was methodical. It was paranoid. But it didn't fit.
Closing your eyes, you laid your head down on top of the journal you hadn't opened. You thought back to the mine. It had been cool, the air a bit damp and smelling metallic due to the minerals in the walls. Your leg ached and arm throbbed—actually, all of you throbbed. Remembering getting to the second chamber and deciding to show off a little by casting your invisibility, you could feel the lingering anxiety from earlier reigniting in a rush of adrenaline. You recalled the careful, cautious few steps, then stepping on the glyph.
Instantaneously did the magic react, swirling and gripping you and holding your person so firmly in place you were amazed you could still breathe. Sulfur and green apples, sour and bitter and wrong hit your nose just before the noise like shattered glass followed. The best way you could describe a paralysis spell was elastic, but not in a good way. Like too many rubber bands that were far too tight were suddenly wrapped around all of your limbs, constricting every inch of you together with no real give regardless of how much you squirmed.
Solas had quick reflexes, part from being elven, part from practice, and part from good old-fashioned natural talent. His dispel ripped the magic clean away before you could even begin to lose your balance, and your skin was left so raw afterwards—
Your eyes shot open. And your skin was left so raw from Solas' magic. Raw from Thedosian magic. It hurt. It always hurt. It always felt like a hot knife was scraping away at every layer of gold-toned flesh, trying to see the muscle underneath but without the right tools to make the process quick and painless. Your skin felt like it should've either been in ribbons or extraordinarily sunburned.
"Sunburned," you murmured, a bit dumbfounded as you scrambled away from the table. "Damn it. Shit. No, no, no, no, no—fuck! How could I not notice?!"
The paralysis glyph hadn't hurt.
That spell wasn't made from Aedric magic—it was Daedric.
You hadn't even bothered re-saddling Saffron, and instead mounted the horse bareback. Luckily for you, he was intelligent enough to notice that time was of the essence and made the ride to Redcliffe uncharacteristically easy for you. Halfway there, a…ripple, for lack of a better term, caused you to urge him faster. Dread was bubbling in the pit of your stomach because the ripple stank of unfamiliar Aedric magic coming from Redcliffe, and if you could feel it so strongly so far away, it couldn't be good. Add in that Alan had given Alexius that entourage he'd wanted so badly…
Besides, the last time you'd felt magic suddenly erupt a great distance away, the world had ended up with a hole in the sky. Not the best for precedent, that.
Once close to the gates, you took a sharp detour and, after tucking Saffron away where he was least likely to be found, climbed over the wall instead of walking straight through. Something told you going right on in wasn't a good idea. It took you all of three minutes to decide to go to the windmill where the secret entrance to the castle was first, and you were glad you did as a haggard scout peeked his head around a crumbling wall when you approached.
Had the boy not been half-dead, his widening eyes would have been comical. And, y'know, had you actually been able to see them. "Milady! Thank the Maker! I was waiting for nightfall to sneak back to the camp." A rush of words you could only half understand began to spill out of his mouth. The scout was talking too fast for you to get more than Alan's name out of him, so, sighing, you knelt behind the wall with him out of sight and gave the boy a good shake. His jaw snapped shut, enormous blue eyes watery with a bit of terror and glazed with a bit of shock. You offhandedly determined him to be a half-breed. His features weren't quite angular enough to be completely elven, but they weren't soft enough to be completely human, either. Didn't see many of his kind.
"One thing at a time. What happened?"
"Th-the Magister. He cast some sort of strange magic—it was chaos! In the fighting, the Herald told me and a few others to come and find you. The others...they didn't make it, and...and..." He was pale and distraught, but he got even more pallid as he spoke. You growled and stood.
"Damn! I knew this would happen. I need to get word to Haven—"
The scout suddenly gripped your leg as you tried to move away, his fingers so tight they shook where they dug into your skin. "No! There isn't time! T-they've probably got them in the dungeons by now—the Herald wanted us to get you to break them out!"
"Break them out?" you fretted, gently prying his hand away and crouching next to him again. "I thought you said they were fighting?" You surreptitiously took his pulse from his wrist you held. It was far too fast and a bit thread-y, weak. How much of it was shock from physical trauma and how much from emotional trauma was anyone's guess.
"They were!" He wailed quietly, face pinched. "But it wasn't looking good. The Magister's time magic..." The scout broke of with a whimper, and you bit the inside of your cheek to suppress the scream of frustration. A traumatized scout would not be a good scout. But if you were going to do this, you needed someone familiar with the tunnels, and he was.
Shaking your head, you replied, "The advisors still need to be informed of this so they can send backup of we get caught."
The boy moaned, partially in pain from the bruises forming on his face and part in exasperation. "There's no time! His Worship wanted your assistance as soon as possible. I've left a message for any other Inquisition scouts, but we can't afford to send a crow! Milady, please."
Gritting your teeth, you dragged a hand over your mask as if that would help alleviate the budding headache. It didn't. You let out a long sigh and pulled out a roll of bandages. "Alright. Let's go, but you're binding that side before we go anywhere and staying behind me. You passing out from blood loss halfway there is the last thing either of us needs."
"Or the Herald," he muttered as he grudgingly took the cloth and did as you asked. The wound actually wasn't that bad, a mildly deep gash probably from an axe. But he was already in shock blood loss could exacerbate the problem, a chance you were NOT taking.
So you nodded at him approvingly, beginning to help him with winding the cloth around his abdomen. "Or Alan. What's your name?"
The question took him off guard, it seemed. "W-Will."
You nodded again in a way you hoped came off as reassuring and not distracted. "Good, Will. Now, c'mon. You need to tell me where in here this passage is and how I'm supposed to open it."
The trek through the tunnels was long and elaborate and confusing, and at one point you even went underwater to reach the castle. Despite Will's help, the two of you hit dead ends frequently. It was a half hour before you came across the first Venatori body—clearly Inquisition work by the snapped neck—and proof that you were nearing the dungeons.
That body hadn't raised any alarms at first. You were still a ways into the tunnels at that point—it wasn't a stretch to figure that no Tevinters had found the body simply because no one had thought to look there. However, once you were in the dungeon proper and passed a few more corpses in a hallway, you squinted your eyes.
Kneeling down, you checked the neck and found the vertebrae there cracked as you'd expected. "Okay, I understand not being surprised by the presence of bodies after finding out your castle was infiltrated, but blatantly leaving the dead where they fall? Inside a dwelling? That doesn't make sense. One would think that they'd dispose of the bodies on sanitation alone. No one wants a rotting corpse in their basement."
"M-maybe they haven't come down here yet?" You'd been thinking out loud and hadn't expected a response, so when your injured companion gave you one, you were a little startled.
You frowned. "If they were going to put Alan and the others in the cells, they had to. Main party plus twenty-odd scouts—they'd need all these cells if they were going to hold everyone, and too many of them are empty. They would have seen the bodies, anyway."
Will gave a shaky shrug and said, "Do you think…think they could have escaped?" If anything, the question made your frown deepen.
"If they escaped, where are they? No," you shook your head. "They're keeping them all together."
The boy's already wide, watery eyes got even wider as he gaped at you. "Together? Like for some sort of mass interrogation?" Brow quirked, you made a mental note to talk to Leliana about sending novices on sensitive missions. Not only was his inexperience glaringly obvious, but the kid couldn't have been older than sixteen, seventeen at the most. Sure, life could be hard for someone of mixed race a-la-Will, but he had no business being in the field like this. There were plenty of places back in Haven that could have taken him.
"Let's hope Alexius is stupid enough to keep them for a mass interrogation," you said slowly because, honestly, a mass interrogation was a wildly fabricated story just waiting to happen and anyone who thought otherwise was a moron, "and not because they're a blood source." Just when you thought Will couldn't get any paler, he did. Seriously, was snow this white? You didn't think so. Maybe it was your eyes. Yes, pun intended.
"B-blood source?" Oookay, you thought, gripping him firmly on the shoulder and steering him along. Let's stop thinking out loud around the novice, shall we?
You grimaced. "Uh, don't worry about it, kid. I'm…probably wrong. Maybe they're in the rooms. We should check the rooms." That even sounded weak to you. Alexius would definitely keep skilled prisoners in unsecured guest and personal chambers. Yeah. Totally.
Will didn't respond, which was probably for the best. When it came to comforting people, you had a chronic foot-in-mouth issue that just got worse the more you talked.
More hallways and more Venatori bodies followed through to the courtyard, which was deserted. You were on alert now, crouching and urging Will to do the same with daggers out and at the ready. Bodies being left, fine, maybe they hadn't seen them yet. But Alexius had a sizeable number of guards with him in the throne room from what Will had said. Take a few as casualties, and that still potentially left enough for a few light sweeps for any reinforcements and posts around the main entrance. That there were none was entirely too left of field.
It either meant that they were off doing something else, or it meant that Alexius and his Venatori were so confident in being able to handle any backup that they didn't feel patrols or postings necessary. You didn't like either option, but the second one actually worried you more than the former. If they were that cocky, then it was for a good reason. In the castle, the Venatori had the home advantage. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt every nook and cranny and mouse hole in the place, whereas you had only as good an idea as informants could give you. Informants who probably hadn't done as thorough a check as those that worked for the other side.
The Inquisition was working on fractured mapping whereas Alexius was working on Imperial concrete threaded with steel and moonstone. You had to poke them where they weren't expecting it and make a fault before they expounded on yours.
So that's why you motioned for Will to stay put in the courtyard despite his vehement protests and took to scaling the walls. The perfect place to set up an ambush would be inside or near to the front door. It was so obvious, no one would expect someone to be dumb enough to try setting one there—reverse logic, you supposed.
Next to an upper story window, however? Redcliffe was thought to be impenetrable, but where the walls had once been smooth, time and neglect had weathered the stone into decent handholds. The castle wall itself prevented people from getting in well enough, but once someone was in the courtyard, a bit of acrobatics, a good "eye" for texture, and some experience could take care of the rest.
Getting into an empty bedroom hadn't taken you more than fifteen minutes, but it had already been about two hours since you felt that burst of magic. To say you weren't exactly optimistic on the best of days was an understatement, but you were working with too many unknown variables to be confident that things would end all hunky-dory. Where were Alan and the others? More importantly, why were they not in the dungeons and what was being done to them? Had they been split up? If so, again, where were they? How were they separated? Who was placed where? Why?
You didn't take the main entrance into the throne room or even get close to it, for that matter—that would have been suicide. Nobility didn't like their servants to be noticeable during proceedings. Even if a family was lenient enough to allow their servants to casually use front entrances, if something important was going on in a room such as a war council or an audience, then most structures in Ferelden had a complex web of servant's tunnels so as to keep them out of sight and out of mind. The same had been done in Cyrodiil, High Rock, Alinor, and to an extent in Morrowind. In Thedas, it was a common practice of Nevarran, Orlesian, Fereldan, and Free Marches nobility; although you were pretty sure it had begun in Tevinter and then tapered out as showing off slaves became more important as a display of wealth. Having them work behind the scenes sort of undermined that, you supposed.
So the lack of slaves dead in the halls was strange, as well. Alexius was a member of the Magisterium, albeit not a major player. Still, the man owned slaves. There was no getting around it—if he wanted to hold onto his status, he had them. And no self-respecting Magister would travel to a foreign country on business or otherwise without taking part of his household staff with him; a staff that either included or was primarily slave-driven. Alexius wouldn't have made use of the servant's tunnels, and instead as per Tevinter custom, his slaves and servants would have freely wandered the halls. The mages were ostensibly indentured, yes, but that was after he arrived and he wouldn't have used them in the "household" anyway to keep up pretenses—"indentureds" were strictly for military or government work to pay off owed debts, not gain citizenship. That Fiona fell for the ruse spoke paragraphs of her desperation, but you digressed.
Alexius would have had slaves for the trip to Ferelden. Inquisition forces would not have risked sparing any of them due to threat of what your childhood healing instructor had called trauma bonding—captives, specifically slaves, would adapt and vehemently protect their captors to try protecting themselves. A raid several hundred years ago in Morrowind had Argonian slaves violently attacking the Shadowscale units hired to free them because they'd emotionally submitted to their owners in order to survive and were adamant in defending their masters. According to Bull, it was also common with the slaves of deceased Tevinter slaveholders in Seheron. One of his many scars had come from a slave furious her master had been slain and terrified that she would somehow be punished if she didn't attempt to get retribution.
It was also plausible that Alexius would have kept vital members of the Arl's staff after forcing Teagan to leave. People who had prior knowledge on running this particular household with its layout and infrastructure, as well as understanding of what systems of management worked best were valuable. He would have kept a few to teach and supervise the be staff, and they certainly would have been expressly forbidden from using the tunnels to traverse. What better show of power was there than not only usurping your enemy, but stealing his household? Teagan's servants would have been on display, and it's unlikely the scouts would have known enough or been willing to risk leaving them alive, either.
Yet evidence of either slaves or appropriated help were suspiciously absent. In fact, the whole castle barely felt lived-in. To you, that screamed ambush. And ambush, in turn, either meant well-hidden or obviously placed in hopes of tripping someone up. Alexius had seemed the type to put a trap in a clichéd location just to gloat when someone fell for it thinking it was too obvious.
Servants' tunnels it was.
The floors were cold, the air was musty and damp, and the path from a supply closet to the main hall three floors below was confusing. You had to practically walk through five rooms and backtrack twice when you unintentionally landed in the buttery before you managed to figure it out. You tipped your hats to Teagan's servants for traversing the bloody thing every day—they were more directionally-gifted than you. And probably not blind, but that was beside the point.
Curiously, you hit a dead end. The wall itself was solid, but you could feel a seam and a lever, so you figured it was a hidden door. Just as well—you could hear raised voices coming from the other side. You'd found the throne room.
"Where?" growled a voice you didn't quite recognize. It was snivel-y and deep, oddly threatening for its characteristics. It was also a male voice. Whimpering followed along with some metal-on-metal that could mean plate armor or a blade. Neither was reassuring.
You thought you heard a huff. "We have already told you. We don't know." That was Solas. Why was Solas answering? If anyone would be answering any questions (and you were sure you'd laugh later at the irony of this sounding like a mass interrogation later), it would be Alan. Him not doing so either meant he was incapacitated or not in the room, and you shuddered to think about either situation.
It sounded…you strained your ears, but couldn't tell through the stone if that had been a slap or a full-on hit. Either way, you winced sympathetically. "They seem to be…stubborn." Alexius grumbled. Footsteps paced, but you couldn't tell who. Perhaps the first man? Maybe a guard?
"It's of little consequence," the first speaker brushed off with the casual nature of someone discussing the weather fouling. "I can find what I wish on my own well enough. Extracting the information was purely for their benefit. Something their leaders apparently care little for."
A commotion began almost immediately, protests that sounded like they were telling someone to sit back down. "Camp!" cried another unfamiliar voice. "Back at camp! That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"Sian!" The hissed admonishment was met with a biting retort you couldn't quite make out, but it didn't sound pleasant. Not that it mattered—your stomach had already dropped into your boots. Camp. The only things left behind at camp had been an unmarked map, Saffron, and you. Whatever this man wanted was one of the three, and you doubted he wanted the horse and map to go adventuring.
Slow, methodical steps came ever-so-slightly closer. "So someone speaks up! But are you telling the truth or simply saying what I want to hear?" No Alexius. That was odd. Wasn't he in charge of this whole mess? Why was he taking such a backseat and letting this new person make demands, ask questions? Alexius wasn't working alone, but you hadn't thought he was a follower.
"No, it's true! She and the Herald had a fight, and she stayed at camp!" Yep, definitely talking about you. You started mentally checking through a list of enemies, but it was useless. You couldn't recognize the person speaking (though something was nagging at you), and that list was long. Really long.
The steps paused and then faltered like the person was dramatically turning around. "Hmm. Can any of you confirm this?" A few murmurs, but those were quickly silenced. "Ah! No. I was addressing them." You assumed he meant the inner circle because after several seconds of stubborn silence, a sigh was breathed and Blackwall spoke.
"The lad's not lying," grumbled the warrior. Someone nudged him.
Mystery Man, however, laughed. "Oh, he is, but not intentionally. I commend you, Ser Warden, for defending one of your own. Newly minted within the organization and already the sense of comradery is astounding. It is an exceedingly rare trait for your kind."
"Your kind" implied non-human. That was good. That was something at least. And comradery…dwarven? No, if you were hearing things right, then the gait was too wide. He was too tall.
Blackwall growled, "Like honor is to yours?"
"I don't know. Let us ask your broker, shall we?" Another turn, towards your pseudo-hiding place this time. "Come on, now. I can't imagine you being able to hear much behind that wall." Ice ran through your veins, and you froze up. How had he…? This was impossible.
Well, not quite, your brain supplied. He was looking for you. A trap isn't too far-fetched. He knew you'd come after them. He even sent you a guide.
And you promptly cursed yourself for being so gullible. Will. Will was too young to be a scout, but he wasn't too young to be a slave. You were too concerned with Alan being captured that you hadn't stopped to think that of course paranoid, crazily-experienced Leliana wouldn't have sent a rookie that young on such an important mission, not even as training. This was sensitive. She, of all people, knew that. No risks of danger were taken with Alan's life anyway. With it so, you hadn't stopped to remember the very fact.
You also hadn't stopped to remember that no one with Will's voice or mixed heritage had been at camp or sent to the mine.
You'd been a fool.
So it was that anger began to melt the fear, and a steady hand nudged the latch and shoved the brick to swing on its hinges.
Nothing was said as two sets of hands gripped your elbows and dragged you through the sea of people you could now hear more clearly. There shouldn't have been this many people. You didn't struggle or protest as they led you forward, but you could feel the eyes on you. Not all of the stares were good, and the few that were felt undyingly curious. You heard Varric try to say something, but he was quickly silenced. No one in the "crowd" tried speaking after that.
A hand touching the hollow of your throat stopped your progression. You stayed still as a statue, face pointing defiantly ahead and hoping that the gaping black slits your mask called eyes was unnerving whoever was in front of you.
At least, you stayed still until a cold fingertip managed to weasel its way under the wrappings around your throat. "What in—get your hands off of me! What are you doing?" Your eyes involuntarily squeezed shut as you fought, but the guards holding you were strong and weren't letting you budge.
The man's voice carried a heavy edge of disappointment. "I'm distraught you don't recognize me. I thought I left a hint, but you didn't even pick up on that."
"What hint?" Growling, you tried kicking a leg out, only to be met with air. Great. "I don't know you!"
He sighed like dealing with a disobedient child. Honestly, that's what you felt like at the moment. "The glyph! You didn't recognize my magic. You always recognize my magic." That ward…that Daedric ward?
You immediately stopped struggling. "That was… You're from… Who the fuck a—?" Opening your eyes, you felt like you entered a nightmare.
There were no more words because standing in front of you was the man who had ruined everything. Standing in front of you was the man who had made every promise to your face while simultaneously working the knife millimeter by millimeter into your back. And he did it in such a way you thought it was good for you. In front of you was the man who had unequivocally and undeniably betrayed you, in every fiber of your being.
If you weren't responsible for what happened to Nirn, then this man, this monster, was.
There were no more words, but you managed to fit all of the questions and pain and anger into a name. A single name. A single plea. "Ondolemar?"
Something hit the unguarded back of your head, and all you knew was silence.
"The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies."
-Unknown
