The Names We're Given
Chapter 11: Soldiersbane
by Dreamer In Silico
The Circle Tower
Zevran's first direct encounter with a demon was certainly… enlightening… though he dearly hoped that the rage demon's fiery exterior was not to be the norm. Daggers were by far his favorite instruments of death – highly concealable, highly precise, and highly versatile – but ever so rarely, he found himself with a desire for range, and this was one of those times. It was not advisable to set one's gloves aflame as one struck. (And throwing knives were all well and good when your enemy had a fragile neck with tender arteries to slice, but the single one he had tried to use against the demon had all the effect of a blade thrown into a campfire – it just spat sparks everywhere.)
It was going to take an evening's work just to get the soot off his armor.
He didn't have much time to contemplate the unpleasantness, however; just beyond the smoldering embers of the dead rage demon lay the staircase to the second level of the Tower. Had Zevran been alone, he would have catfooted up the stairs through the shadows, holding a mirror ahead of him to warn if anything awaited him around the turn of a spiral. However, this being a sizeable party, and Alistair being Alistair, stealth was out of the question.
Zevran shook his head. Soldiersbane on daggers. At least the clanking oaf was durable – if anyone was suited to handle running into unexpected and probably magical trouble in the middle of a flight of stairs, he was. Suitably, the templar went first, and Zevran amused himself by falling back near the rear with Wynne and Sten to observe his companions. The pretty ones, at any rate.
Mei was the second in the column, padding up the steps with both swords drawn. She was wary, to her credit, but near-vibrated with a leashed aggression that demanded they keep moving. Morrigan, Zevran chuckled to himself to note, resembled Alistair more than she did her fellow apostate in some key ways – she had none of the templar's earnest heroism, to be sure, but she moved with that singularly brazen complacency of one who has never truly felt hunted, straight up the center of the stairs with staff at ready. Leliana was, but for her flame-colored hair, a blink and a whisper behind Morrigan, ready with watchful eyes and a set of wicked throwing knives close at hand, amply betraying her familiarity with such clandestine activities. The Chantry must surely have been very, very boring for one such as she.
Deathroot on throwing knives; Adder's Kiss, two vials, left side.
The clanking up ahead stopped suddenly, as did their movement, and he gritted his teeth in frustration. "Keep moving, Alistair; that's Owain," he heard Mei say, and then he could finally step onto the landing and get his bearings to smooth the ruffled feathers of his sense of tactics.
"Ahh, but my lady Warden, if he keeps moving, how will he protect us all from anything that might happen to be lurking at the top of the stairs? He is such a noble one, our Alistair." That earned him a baleful glare from the warrior in question who would hopefully not block the path in the future, but – yes, there it was – a strangled snort of laughter from Mei. Let it never be said that Zevran Arainai did not possess a generous breadth of talents.
"Mage Surana." The queer monotone of the human man's voice gave Zevran an involuntary shudder. The voice alone would have marked him as Tranquil, even if the Chantry brand had not. Zevran had not had occasion to meet very many of his kind, and was happier for it.
'Mage Surana' was certainly distressed, though she clearly knew the man. "Owain, what are you doing here? You know the tower is beset by demons?"
"Yes. I am aware that the Tower is under attack. But as there were no demons in the Stockroom, it was advisable for me to stay and tend it," Owain answered, as if he had all the time in the world to do so.
"We're here to help," Mei said. "Can you tell us anything about what happened?"
The man nodded placidly. "Yes. Demons were summoned by practitioners of blood magic, and some of the mages likely became possessed."
"How did this start?"
"I do not know," he answered simply.
The Warden made a small sound of frustration, and Zevran peeled away to quarter the room. The hallway beyond was wide open; their ranged fighters would need cover if anything arrived. Soldiersbane in the center.
Wynne, meanwhile, spoke up with a smooth patience that seemed to make the younger woman even more tense. "Have you seen or heard from any other survivors, Owain? Please, this is very important."
The Tranquil nodded. "Mage Niall requested the Litany of Adralla from the Stockroom approximately one hour ago. He then left through the archway." A lift of a hand indicated the door leading to the rest of the second level beyond. Zevran had, by that point, circled behind Owain, still assessing the environment, but – well, with the Circle in such disarray, they could hardly begrudge a few small supplies for their proposed rescuers, no? Wynne was still preoccupied with the discussion, fortunately, for he was certain she would be watching him suspiciously otherwise. Leliana, amusingly enough, did see him scoop up a brace of small lyrium vials… and did not react at all, which answered a few more of his questions about her scruples or lack thereof.
"I… I think I've heard of that," Mei was saying, brow furrowed.
"It defends against compulsion wrought by blood magic," Wynne supplied. "He may have been hoping to mount a resistance. Were there others, Owain?"
"No. Mage Niall was alone, and I have seen no others since," came the monotone.
"He may know more, and we may well need the Litany. We've got to try to find him, at least on our way up," Mei said decisively. "Let's go." Zevran was already at her shoulder, fingering the pommels of his daggers and fervently hoping their next targets would be made of mortal flesh and blood.
He got his wish not five minutes later, as the sound of hushed, but harsh voices reached them from around the bend and inside a small study. Mei frowned and held up a hand for silence, but too late – the voices fell quiet with someone's hissed order.
"Come out where we can see you," the Warden called, and Zevran winced. His preferred form of caution would be attacking as suddenly and quietly from the doorway as possible, but she was taking her charge of saving the Circle mages seriously. "We're friends of the Circle."
There was silence for a moment before a female voice answered, "Does the moon hide her eyes?"
A few of the others looked puzzled, but the assassin knew a demand for a passphrase when he heard one. He flicked a glance toward Mei, to find her frown deepening, but no confusion on her face. "She does," she called back.
Another silence fell, but this one barely had time to settle before Wynne and Mei called out a warning almost as one. "Back!" "Cover!" Zevran wasted no time in obeying, tumbling backward and even still catching a lick of flame against his boot.
More scorch marks. Brasca.
"I don't think they liked your answer very much!" Alistair yelled, dropping his shield hastily after having covered himself from the worst of the flashpan conflagration.
Fortunately for all of them, the single fireball was the most impressive thing the three rogue mages could muster, though their smaller magic was potent and tinged with blood. The fight to subdue them was short and furious, ending with two of their foes dead and the human woman with one of Zevran's daggers at her throat.
Her breath was coming in short, heavy sobs and he didn't think she had much more fight left in her, but nonetheless, he was cautious. If she turned into an abomination suddenly, he'd need the leverage. "On the floor, if you please," he ordered silkily. "Slowly."
The blood mage complied, shaking all over. For all she had thrown some rather nasty spells his way during the fight, she was young, and utterly unused to having her life threatened so directly.
"Do you wish this one dead as well, Warden?" Zevran asked.
Mei wiped her swords on one of the fallen ones' robes with a scowl of distaste and shook her head. "No. Not yet, anyway." She turned toward Zevran and his captive. "Jarvia, you idiot, what the sodding hell is going on here?"
"You're back here and you don't even know?" the woman spat, finding courage in indignation. "You should have been with us!"
"Who is 'us,'?" Alistair interjected.
"The Libertarian fraternity, I'm afraid, although not a form of it I recognize," Mei answered shortly, before turning back to the woman. "If being with you involves summoning demons – and it clearly does – then no, I should not have," she continued, voice low and dangerous. "What. Is going. On?"
Factions, obscure schisms, passphrases, backstabbing… Pleasant little mess of politics they have here, Zevran mused to himself. It almost reminded him of Antiva.
The blood mage was glaring mutely up at her interrogator, and Mei's anger crashed like a breaking wave into a hiss and a jerkily-paced few steps. "Listen," the Warden began again. "The templars are outside waiting for reinforcements for the Right of Annulment. The tower is sealed. I'm here to fix things before that happens. Do you really want to die for whatever new banner you've taken up? Are you that much of a fanatic?"
Zevran felt his captive slump, just slightly, and he knew that she would talk. He eased the pressure of his blade to give her more room to breathe, but kept his solid grip on her hair.
"I…" she began, voice catching. "I'm not. No, I don't want to die. We thought – Uldred told us – "
Mei cut her off, fury and horror at war in her expression. "Uldred is behind this?"
"Oh Maker," Wynne was murmuring from behind them, but it was barely audible over Mei's string of profanities in what sounded like at least five tongues. Impressive.
When she had reined herself in, the Warden prompted the human woman to continue, knuckles white on her sword hilts. "Uldred told you what?"
The captive drew another gulping, frightened breath. "He told us that the time had come to take our freedom by force. That we should use all the powers at our disposal, and show no mercy, because it was worth any cost. He… he spoke of… using demons, as well, but some of us were too… cautious…" Utterly terrified. "… to do that."
"Then he's probably an abomination, himself," Wynne concluded. "This is very bad; Uldred is a master of the most destructive parts of the Primal school. He will be… difficult to subdue."
"Sodding fool," Mei was still muttering. "Did more to hurt the movement in what? A week? A few days? Than any fucking templar… Jarvia." Her eyes sharpened and head snapped up to the captive, all of a sudden. "Irving. Is Irving still alive? What can you tell us about the rest of the situation?"
"He… the First Enchanter should still live. Uldred wanted to… turn him. The first strike was to be at a Senior Council meeting," the blood mage whispered.
Zevran looked to Wynne, recalling that her younger assistant had addressed her as a 'senior.' "How did our lovely Senior Enchanter miss out on this party?"
"I'd been called away to deal with a problem among the apprentices, and have never been so belatedly grateful for an interruption in my life," Wynne answered tiredly.
"What else?" Mei demanded of Jarvia.
"I don't know much more. We were to scout and secure the lower levels of the Tower… Some of the demons the others summoned have gotten out-of-hand, so they may well be scattered across your path. That's all." The woman gulped audibly. "Please… let me go, Mei?" she pleaded. "You… know how it was. All we wanted was what you have."
The Warden barked a harsh laugh. "You have no idea what you're saying, with that, and pray you never find out."
"Mei…" Alistair ventured warily. "You can't possibly be thinking of letting her go?"
"She has strayed from her path. Kill her and be done with it," Sten growled.
Zevran expected anger from the mage, then, but all that passed was a moment where she looked to the ceiling with profoundly weary eyes, sweeping transiently across his own gaze as they fell back to the bloody floor. She addressed Alistair, ignoring Sten entirely. "While I can 'possibly' be thinking of a lot of things, I'll not have you forget… no. Without knowing more about the balance of power here, I can't guess whether or not she'll betray us."
"I wouldn't –!" the prisoner began to protest.
Mei cut her off briskly, shaking her head. "Save it. You've lost whatever personal claim to trust you may have had with me. With that in mind, I give you three choices: you can go with us and help reclaim the Tower, or we can leave you bound here… which might result in you surviving to be freed later… or give you a mercy stroke that the demons wouldn't. Think quickly."
Zevran pressed his dagger close against her throat once more. He had a feeling that a bit of added urgency would not go amiss. She whimpered very quietly, once, frozen for a moment by the question, but when she did answer, it was the correct one – by his lights, anyway.
"I'll help you."
Mei nodded, her eyes on his rather than the captive's, and he smoothly released the human and stepped back. That had gone well enough, all things considered.
Her face full of black irony, Mei then turned to Alistair. "Keep her where you can see her, hmm?"
The templar in question was taken aback at this sudden implicit request to put his Chantry training to use, but it was all Zevran could do to keep from laughing, the humor of the situation amplified to hilarity by Alistair's nonplussed expression. Alistair was clearly an idealist, and sometimes his sister Warden spoke like one as well, but she displayed a streak of ruthless pragmatism in her actions that Zevran understood well. Whatever one wanted – be it security from enemies, influence among allies, the freedom to choose one's own course, or any other possible desire – one had to be prepared to get his hands dirty to obtain it. Those who held an extensive set of principles in higher esteem than desires and goals seldom got what they wanted in life.
Oh, they might wrap their failure in the pretty trappings of self-righteousness and claim to be happy… but in his experience, every one of them was lying.
"Through here," Mei murmured. "I doubt he'd be hiding for long if he was trying to make sure someone could use the Litany, but he may have bolted here if forced. There are a lot of places to hide in the chapel."
The party had split in half to sweep the tower's expansive second floor, Wynne gone with Alistair, Leliana, and the blood mage to the northern half of the level, while Mei led the others through the south. It was a division that made sense – each group had a mage guide, a warrior, and someone who possessed skill at the arts of stealth – and that conveniently separated Mei from those most likely to disapprove of her methods and attitudes, Zevran did not fail to note.
The tower's chapel was a grandiose affair, as such things went; what it lacked in jewels and stained glass it made up for in statuary and inscriptions. Everywhere, the inscriptions… some of them were old enough to be somewhat difficult to read, but the overarching theme was apparent – the mages were to be reminded at every turn of the need for restraint, piety, and submission to the Chantry's laws.
Magic exist to serve man, and never to rule over him.
Foul and corrupt are they
Who have taken His gift
And turned it against His children.
They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones.
They shall find no rest in this world
Or beyond.
Zevran had always found local chantries somewhat distasteful, but this was downright oppressive. Small wonder that some of the mages rebelled; at least within the Crows, there was the eventual hope of a nearly free rein on power to keep apprentices and mid-tier assassins in line. Here, the whole house of cards relied on mere piety and shame. Perhaps the templars were successful in preventing a mass alliance of their inmates that would bring the whole thing crashing down, but individual malcontents were surely inevitable.
Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.
That one wasn't so bad, Zevran supposed, peering into the shadowed prayer alcove. It might have been a reasonable hiding spot for a desperate mage, but there was no sign of a recent visitation; a very thin layer of dust had been allowed to collect on the tiny bench and the stone representation of Andraste. In addition to the traditional sword, the statue had wings, crude and ambiguous in origin, and outstretched in what was apparently a reference to the verse of the Chant.
The whole effect was really quite forbidding, and the dust seemed to agree with him.
"I do not believe our friend is here," he said, having finished quartering his section of the chapel. "Shall we press on?"
The Warden nodded. "Not much more to this part of the Tower, but we should check the offices beyond. Shouldn't take long." Her eyes had sharpened for just a fraction of a second, then returned to bland neutrality as she finished her statement. Did she have some other reason for wanting to search here?
The door to the main room in the adjoining hall was locked, and beyond his skill to open. He really needed to remedy that deficiency in his skills, and as soon as possible. The door was laughing at him, and for once, he was not amused.
Lock or no lock, however, the door was no match for Sten's shoulder-charge, and they gained entry in short order. Neither errant demons nor cowering mages waited within, but Zevran's suspicions regarding ulterior motives were confirmed when Mei gathered up a healthy stack of papers and books from the office, which was very obviously the domain of someone important. She did not seem to be looking for anything specific; instead the collection was probably opportunistic. He certainly approved – more information was always good, and all the better if it was easy to come by.
The other offices on the hall were less impressive, containing little of interest, let alone their quarry. He was not especially looking forward to continuing their climb to the tower's higher levels.
Two floors and as many instances of the party reconvening and re-dividing later, the search was acquiring a rapidly-sharpening edge of foreboding.
When they had first passed the templar barricade, adrenaline had kept them moving quickly, ready for a large confrontation at any point. Since then, they had fought several skirmishes with stray demons, abominations, and the odd bewitched templar, but the slow meticulousness of the search wore at the nerves in a way a pitched battle would not.
Soldiersbane on daggers.
Zevran himself was trained for this sort of thing, of course, but his companions by and large were not, and the two apostates in particular became more tightly-wound with each useless room. Morrigan attempted to hide it, but the Warden did not bother, hissing curses under her breath as they disposed of the minor impediments they came across… he had briefly considered offering to teach her a few in Antivan, but she was just pent-up enough that he doubted the offer would be well-received, humorous delivery or no.
Yes, he was used to the waiting, but a pair of jumpy mages as part of his team made keeping his own frustration in check… somewhat difficult.
They had just checked in with Alistair's group and decided to meet again in the level's central chamber after a sweep of the periphery when they finally came across something a little more interesting. The first hint of trouble was the cooing, feminine voice from beyond a doorway – there was something… off about it, an echoing quality like several voices speaking just out of synch… and when they approached the door and caught their first glimpse of the near-naked, violet-skinned demon and her templar plaything, the Warden stopped short, her face blanching white.
The demon had noticed them and turned to saunter forward, but Mei's eyes were focused beyond the creature on the bearded, vacant-faced templar, and their fury surpassed even what she had showed when confronting the Knight-Commander.
"Ssso uncouth, to disturb ssuch an intimate moment…" the demon began to say, but the Warden had already begun to rattle off orders, flat-voiced.
"Sten, Morrigan, take her. Zevran, with me. The templar will try to aid her."
"Thiss poor man only wissshes – "
"Save your breath, demon," Mei muttered, drawing both her swords in one motion. Zevran was already halfway across the room, taking advantage of the templar's fixation on his mistress to flank him.
The demon shrieked her indignation as Sten charged, and Zevran methodically relegated his awareness of her presence to the simple question of whether she was paying attention to him. Since at present, she was not, he could focus on his own target.
Mei had flashed briefly with magic as she'd moved to engage, no doubt trying to get some protection in place before – there it was. The templar's hand pulsed with a near-blinding light that had the mage dodging instinctively, but the close quarters left her unable to avoid the draining smite. She shouted in pain and slowed for a moment, but then met him head-on and blade-to-blade, her magic completely abandoned in exchange for a furious flurry of steel that he hastened to defend against. Perfect.
Templar armor was always annoyingly well-crafted, and this one seemed to have some officer rank, for his was of higher quality and more ornate decoration than that of the ones they had fought earlier. However, the joints were still fashioned the same way, and that was all Zevran really needed to know. A floor below, he had perfected the stab and twist that would efficiently enter the joint and sever tendons – a technique he now put to brutal use.
The human barely had time to take two swings at the Warden before his sword arm dropped uselessly to his side, bleeding from a wound to the shoulder. He attempted a bashing charge with his shield, but she leapt nimbly to the side, letting him barrel past an extended blade. The blow was surely glancing, but he staggered all the same, and Zevran took the opportunity to slip a dagger under his cuirass at the back. The cut was mostly turned, this time, by the leather the man wore beneath, but the fight was as good as won.
He moved to finish the man, but Mei had stepped back in front and grabbed him by his chestnut hair already… Zevran would let her have her kill.
But she did not end it, not yet, instead dragging the templar's head back to look him full in the eyes. He jerked and made the first noise other than a grunt Zevran had heard from him, a low, terrified moan. Mei was smiling down at him, the expression cold as the Waking Sea in the dead of winter, and all the more deadly-looking for the fact that she normally flared hot, even in anger.
Zevran could barely hear her over the sounds of Sten and Morrigan finishing off the desire demon as she hissed down at him. "Yes, Thom, it's me. Never thought you'd have to see my face again, did you? Thought your friends would kill us both... wish I had time to make you suffer like she did…. Alas."
A sword was not the best weapon for a grappling-range kill, but a bared throat was a bared throat and a blade was a blade. The templar died with barely a gurgle.