My apologies for the long delay in chapter posting - summer plays havoc with the writing/posting schedule. Many thanks to Oleander's One for her careful and thoughtful betaing!
The pavilion was chilled by the winds that whistled through it, looping in between the pillars and swirling around the motionless figure on the dais in the center. He was tall, inhumanly so, and skeletal, his face tainted but still recognizably that of a man and not a darkspawn. Long robes swathed his thin body, and claw-like hands were upraised as if in supplication to the Maker.
Janeka stopped in front of him. "Corypheus."
Hawke shivered at the reverent tone. Something seemed off about that tone. But the sword pulsed in her hands, the pulse beating through her body and pounding in her blood, and it was increasingly difficult to think of anything but the tug that pulled her toward this still form that awaited her.
"Someone should feed him better," Isabela remarked behind her.
Varric chuckled, but Fenris said humorlessly, "I believe feeding is precisely what he wishes for."
A flash of irritation heated Hawke. Why must he always be so negative about anything that smacked of power? Here was tremendous power just standing there in front of them—why couldn't Fenris appreciate what it could do for them, for the world?
"Tell me," she whispered, although she couldn't have said who she was speaking to. Her lips moved almost soundlessly as she lifted the sword in front of her. "Tell me how."
Immediately she felt a burning in her blood and an increase of heat in her fingertips as the blood rushed there. She swayed, the room spinning.
"Hawke!" Fenris was there with his arm around her waist. "You should rest. This is too much for you."
"No!" She struggled away from him, closing her eyes until the dizziness had passed. "I know what to do now." Sword firmly in hand, she went to one of the pillars in the corners of the room. Before anyone could stop her, she had slashed open the pad of her thumb and pressed the bleeding wound against a seal in the middle of the pillar.
It emitted a blast of energy that sent her staggering backward, and she could feel something shift in the very air around her, a loosening, a growing power like a crouching lion that was gathering itself to spring. There was an intoxicating taste of danger in it, and she ran toward the next pillar, heedless of the blood that dripped onto the floor.
"Evelyn, stop! What are you doing?" Bethany's voice seemed to Evelyn to come from somewhere far away. It wasn't important, not compared to breaking the seal on the next pillar. She pressed her wound against it. As the blood was leeched from her body, she could practically feel it filling the seal, and as the seal shattered something howled in triumph. Was it in her head? The others didn't seem to hear it.
She was oblivious to Bethany's protests, to the mute misery in Fenris's eyes, but not to the sudden appearance of Bianca's silver-tongued face in front of her.
"Not another step, Hawke. Bianca objects to seeing her friends under the influence of crazy half-darkspawn mages."
Janeka shouted at him from across the room, as close as she had come to the seals, but Varric ignored her.
"Out of my way, Varric." Her voice sounded cold in her own ears.
He glared up at her, stubborn as she had ever seen him, and for a moment a blind red rage swept through her. She wanted to bat him aside with the giant blade, him and everyone else who stood between her and the next seal. She was conscious of the blood welling from the wound in her thumb, dripping on her boots.
"Not to be a fuss-budget, sweet thing, but have you thought this through? It doesn't seem like a very good idea to me."
Isabela's drawling voice, light and breezy, drifted through the fog that seemed to surround Hawke. She blinked, trying to focus on her friends, but the throb of her blood in the wound was stronger and she was drawn forward to the seal, heedless of what might be happening around her. She pushed past Varric, nudging Bianca out of her way.
Quietly, Bethany said, "It seems to take Hawke blood to open the seals. If she doesn't, no one can."
"Perhaps no one should." Fenris's voice, sharply. It hurt a little, and Hawke lifted her uninjured hand to cover her ear.
"How many times has he—or Janeka, in his stead—sent the Carta after her?" Varric this time, his voice unusually serious. "You think he's going to stop without getting what he wants? Who else has to be destroyed by this … thing?" There was a pause, and she heard the click of Bianca being unloaded. "Much as I hate to admit it, I think we have to let her do it."
"Hawke, you must hurry!" Janeka called shrilly above the din in Hawke's head, above the quarrelling of her companions.
Yes, she must hurry. The seals were breaking—she could feel the freedom of Corypheus pounding with her heartbeat.
"If Hawke doesn't break the seals, it never stops, is that what you're saying?" Isabela asked.
Fenris sighed, giving in. "Isn't that always the way with these ancient prisons?"
Hawke ignored them all in favor of listening to and following the singing in her blood. She pressed her thumb against the last seal, feeling it give way. The resulting shock wave that traveled across the pavilion knocked them all backward.
The sword seemed to tug at her, pulling her toward the still-motionless figure in the middle of the room. The dais seemed to pulse with the rhythm in her blood. Hawke lifted the sword over her head by the blade, paying no attention to the cuts it made in her palms, and then brought it down in the center of the dais, just in front of Corypheus.
The air trembled. Hawke felt chilled all the way to her bones as a cold wind whipped around them.
A low groaning sound came from Corypheus and then the sword in Hawke's hands shattered, shards of it flying through the air. One slashed Fenris's unprotected arm and he swore, even as Bethany's healing light knit the edges of the cut back together.
Hawke tried to make sense of what she had done—used her own blood to release a darkspawn mage. What could she have been thinking? It seemed incomprehensible to her now.
And then Corypheus was moving, floating free from the ground, and looking around him in confusion.
Janeka appeared beside Hawke, her eyes lit with triumph. "He emerges. I will bind him," she crowed. Raising her staff, she shot a bolt of powerful energy at Corypheus. It curled and writhed visibly around him.
His eyes were open now, and he looked directly at Janeka, holding her gaze. He lifted a hand, flicking it to the side, and her spell was broken, her staff flying back into her face and knocking her to the ground. For a moment she just lay there, her face twisted in pain, then she scrambled backward, getting clumsily to her feet. "Oh, shit."
"You think?" Varric said.
Fenris kept quiet, for which Hawke was grateful. She felt chilled and somehow alone now that the sword had been broken and with it whatever hold Corypheus had had over her mind.
Bethany stepped up next to her. "Sister?"
"I'm here. Just me," she clarified.
"That's a relief. What will we do with him, now that her plans have failed?" She indicated Janeka with a jerk of her chin, but kept her eyes on Evelyn.
Evelyn narrowed her eyes, ready to pronounce judgment, but before she could do so, Corypheus spoke.
His voice was rusty and slow, as befitted someone who hadn't spoken in several ages. "Be this some dream I wake from?" He looked around the pavilion, his twisted face unreadable. "Am I in dwarven lands? But I see the sky … and their roads are so empty …" His eyes fell on Evelyn. "You! Serve you in the temple of Dumat? Bring me the first acolyte at once—I must speak to him!"
Janeka, moving to Evelyn's side, said quietly, "The Wardens captured Corypheus after the first Blight. This was part of the Imperium then."
"Wonderful," Fenris said acidly. "After all my attempts to escape from Tevinter mages, here we are again."
Evelyn glanced back at him, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring up at Corypheus with a face full of revulsion. Anything she might have said to him was cut off by Corypheus's imperious voice, declaiming again.
"You! Whoever you be, you owe fealty to any magister of Tevinter! On your knees!"
The lyrium in Fenris's skin lit as of its own volition. "I kneel to no Magister. Not ever again."
Bethany grabbed his arm, dragging him toward the back of the pavilion as Corypheus began to turn his gaze in the elf's direction. "You idiot, do you want to get us all killed? Let Evelyn deal with him."
"Evelyn is not herself." But he deactivated the lyrium with an effort.
"She's coming back around, now that that useless ugly sword is destroyed. I can hear it in her voice. Stay back here, maybe he'll forget about you. Blend into the shadows—do you know how to do that?" she asked, remembering that his training had been as a warrior.
Fenris nodded. "My master taught me. He had his reasons," he snapped defensively when Bethany gave him a curious look.
"Maybe you can tell me about them sometime. Or not," she added. "Doesn't really matter, does it? Just … see if you can sneak around and get behind him, do that glowy thing you do."
"'Glowy thing'? You appear to have been spending too much time with Isabela," he remarked. Without waiting for a response beyond Bethany's immediate blush, he drifted even farther back, away from Corypheus, and let the shadows close around him.
Corypheus was still demanding fealty and obeisance. Varric rolled his eyes at the ancient magister. "Shut him up, Hawke, can't you?"
Raising her voice, Evelyn said, "The Free Marches haven't been part of the Imperium for six hundred years! No one's kneeling to you."
He stopped in mid-imperious demand, narrowing his eyes as he looked down at Hawke. "You are what held me," he said, slowly and thoughtfully. "I smell the blood in you."
"Ew," Isabela said.
"My sentiments exactly, Rivaini. Hawke, can't we kill this thing yet?"
"No, you mustn't!" Janeka looked shocked. "He holds the key! He can end the Blights; he will be a powerful weapon in our fight against the darkspawn."
"A weapon you can't control? Yeah, that's just what you need." Isabela snorted, turning away from the mage. "Hawke?"
Corypheus's voice, raised in supplication, cut into the conversation. "Dumat! Lord! Tell me, what waking dream is this?" He lifted his face toward the sky, concealed by the roof of the pavilion, closing his eyes. "The light," he breathed. "We sought the golden light. You offered the power of the gods themselves. But it was dark … corrupt." His voice broke into a sob. "Darkness ever since. How long? How long?"
Janeka drew in a horrified breath.
"Is he saying what I think he's saying?" Hawke asked her.
"He is. He's speaking of the Golden City. He was one of them—one of the magisters who violated the Maker's sacred space!"
Varric groaned. "Oh, come on, are we going to fall for these fairy tales?"
"Why, Varric, I thought you were an Andrastean," Bethany said with some surprise.
"Me?" He snorted. "I'm a nothingian. I believe in stories, though, and as stories go, that one has proved pretty powerful."
Without tearing her eyes from Corypheus, Janeka went on in a hurried whisper. "They became the first darkspawn. It was he and his kind who brought down the Blights on all of us!"
Hawke was surprised not to hear an acerbic comment from Fenris, so she made one in his place. "I understand that the magisters of today's Tevinter devote their lives to emulating the depravities of the original magisters." She felt quite proud of that one—she was sure it was what Fenris would have said. The temptation to look for him was very strong, but if he had disappeared somewhere it was because he had a plan, and she couldn't take the risk of jeopardizing that plan. "If this man is one of them, we should wipe him from the face of Thedas."
Her tone brooked no argument, and Janeka, shame-faced, didn't offer one. "You're right." She shook her head. Lines on her face were more evident than they had been before; she looked years older and very weary. "Corypheus must have been controlling me, whispering in my mind. That's what the Wardens meant. He can speak to us through the corruption. It must be why the dwarves were tainted."
Hawke frowned. Something didn't make sense to her. "If he's been asleep all this time, how has he been calling? And for that matter, what has he wanted? He seems too confused to have had any kind of big plan."
"I don't know. Everything I've read indicates he's been in stasis for hundreds of years. Perhaps something in him resisted the spells and has been struggling to find a way to awaken all this time. It doesn't really matter, in the end. All that matters is that we have brought him to full awakening, and it is up to us to prevent him from rising!"
"'Us', she says," Varric muttered. "Like this was all our idea."
Janeka spared a glance for the dwarf, but didn't comment on his remark. Instead, she turned her gaze on Hawke, looking mournful, if not quite as abashed as she probably should have been. "Larius was right. In his name, we must destroy this creature."
"Well, it's about time," Isabela declared loudly.
Hawke looked up at the darkspawn, who was still staring at the ceiling of the pavilion and muttering to Dumat. "First he went after the Maker in his house, now me in mine. While I'm honored to be in such an august company, I think it's time Corypheus learns a few lessons."
"Never thought of you as a schoolmarm, Hawke." Varric grinned as he stepped up next to her, Bianca cradled in his hands.
Corypheus raised his arms, sounding anguished as he cried out, "The city! It was supposed to be golden! It was supposed to be ours!" He stood in that position, staring upwards as he listened, waited, but no response came. With a roar of rage, he tore his gaze away from the ceiling and the heavens above it and looked down at Hawke. "If I cannot be freed by you, I will use your blood to break my chains. The blood, Lord! The blood is mine! The fire in my veins!" His voice rose to a shriek, and bolts of lightning spurted forth from his hands. His whole body was wreathed in lightning.
As Hawke and her team moved automatically into battle positions, the reason for Fenris's disappearance came to her, and she hoped he would know better than to attempt to phase through Corypheus's body while that energy crackled around him. Fenris's body wouldn't be able to withstand it.
To forestall any attempt at heroics on his part, she leaped into the fray, thrusting her sword at Corypheus. His energy wreathed the metal, jolting upward and sending a blinding flash of pain through her.
"Hawke, you idiot," she heard Isabela shout behind her as she fell to her knees.
She was dimly aware of a blur of blue armor next to her. Janeka went past, staff blazing faster than Hawke would have imagined it could. Corypheus blocked the blasts almost as fast as she could create them, but one or two slipped through his defenses, creating smoking holes in his ancient, tattered robes.
A crossbow bolt whistled over Hawke's shoulder, embedding itself in Corypheus's robes. With a contemptuous twitch, the tainted magister loosed the bolt, sending it clattering to the floor. "Perhaps a little something more! Dumat, Lord! Grant me your powers!" He raised his hands to the skies and they burst into flame.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Varric groaned. He threw himself out of the way of a stream of fire that came from Corypheus's burning hands.
Janeka screamed in rage, launching herself at Corypheus. Her nails scraped their way down his cheek before he tossed her aside, her hair on fire. Isabela, who was nearest, stamped on the ends of the mage's hair to put out the flames before she turned back into the fray, throwing a dagger that caught and snagged in Corypheus's robes, barely scratching his leg instead of sinking into the artery the way it had been meant to do.
"What does he have, special robe powers? Sunshine, you have any of those?" Varric called over his shoulder.
Bethany, eyes wide, shook her head. Hawke started to yell at her sister for just standing there, until she realized that Bethany was watching the magister, studying his movements. Evelyn felt a pride in her sister that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. Her little sister wasn't going to go off half-cocked and get herself set on fire like that mage Janeka—she knew what she was doing. And Evelyn's job was to make sure Corypheus didn't notice.
With a cry, she attacked, sparks flying off her blade as it sliced through Corypheus's fire. The magister stepped back under the attack. Then, with a smile of satisfaction, he shifted his positioning. When her next blow came, he caught the sword in his bare hand, and a jolt of energy ran through it. Hawke's gauntlets glowed with the magic, and she was thrown backward, landing hard on her back. As she hit the ground, she heard Fenris cry out. Shaken, she struggled to try to get to her feet before Bethany was at her side, pushing her back down.
"Stay still. Let me look at you. The wrong move after a fall like that could have serious consequences."
"Corypheus," Hawke croaked.
"Let us handle it." Bethany's face was tense. "Now hush while I work. There's not much time, if I'm going to be helpful to the others." She closed her eyes, resting a small, cool hand on Hawke's forehead. Evelyn could feel the slow, careful fingers of her sister's healing seeking out her injuries and putting them right, and she did as she was told, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back onto the ground.
She must have been hurt more than she'd thought, because when she opened her eyes again the pavilion was a shambles. Shards of ice and pieces of rock littered the ground, small fires burned here and there. The walls were cracked and scorched, the floor buckled in several places.
"What happened?" she asked.
Bethany, her face drawn and exhausted and smudged with dirt, gave her a small smile. "You missed the battle."
"I did?" Evelyn pushed herself up on her elbows, surveying the room. Corypheus was down, sprawled on the stone floor in a very undignified position, and Janeka lay near him, her features distorted.
"What happened to her?"
"She started to become an abomination. Fenris killed her." There was a revulsion in Bethany's pretty face, but whether it was for the mage's loss of control or the satisfaction Evelyn was sure her husband must have taken in killing her, it was hard to say.
Alarm bells rang in Evelyn's head. A whole, healthy Fenris would not have been far from her side. "Where is Fenris?"
"Lay back down, sister," Bethany said, her tone as uncompromising as the firm hand she put on Evelyn's chest. "He'll be fine."
"Be fine? What happened to him?"
"When you were knocked out, Fenris tried to use his powers on Corypheus. They backfired."
"Pretty spectacularly," Varric put in. "Kirkwall's New Year's fireworks have nothing on Broody's shower of lyrium sparks."
"Wasn't so much fun for the rest of us." Isabela sounded annoyed. "He singed my boots."
"I'll buy you new ones," Evelyn offered, relaxing a bit at the familiar banter.
"That's cute, sweet thing. Like even you could afford my boots."
"Fenris is sleeping off the effects; I put a spell on him so he'd take a little nap." A tiny smile quirked the corners of Bethany's mouth.
"What Sunshine is trying not to say is that she's been waiting to do that for a long time."
Evelyn struggled to sit up, pushing aside Bethany's restraining hands. The world swam for a moment as she came upright. "But it's over?" she asked. "Corypheus is dead?"
"Corypheus, Janeka, Larius, the Grey Wardens … pretty much everyone's dead."
"Except us. As always." Varric grinned.
"What will you do when our luck runs out and we end up as dead as the next guy?" Evelyn asked, her eyes on Fenris's still form, watching the reassuring rise and fall of his chest. She pushed herself up onto her feet, her muscles complaining as she moved across the pavilion toward Fenris.
"Race you to the Maker. What? I have to make sure he hears my story first."
"Varric, once he hears your story, he won't want to listen to anyone else's."
"I think that's the general idea," Isabela drawled. She knelt next to Bethany, pressing a damp cloth against a cut on the mage's cheek. Evelyn hadn't even noticed it. "You should rest," Isabela said to Bethany, her tone gentle and concerned.
"I'll be fine."
"You will be if you don't overwork yourself."
That was as much of the conversation as Evelyn heard. She sank down next to Fenris, stroking his hair back from his face. Leaning back against the pavilion wall, she closed her eyes. "Let's go home," she whispered.