disclaimer type=standard

Anything you recognise is Bioware's. I daresay anything else belongs to them too.

/disclaimer

o_ooo000ooo_o

"You believe the Knight-Commander Darren had a hand in the conspiracy against you?" Cassandra said questioningly. "That the nobles involved did not act out of self-interest?"

Kathryn nodded, her expression sombre. "Darrian, and yes, he did. He was not just involved, he was the puppet master. As a rule, the nobility in Ferelden are self-absorbed, ambitious, amoral to a certain extent, but they are not stupid. And they are not suicidal."

The Seeker frowned at that. "Attacking even an accomplished mage without templar assistance certainly sounds suicidal to me. Attacking a mage of your power and skill without… well, it was the height of folly."

An agreeable snort greeted that point. "True, but consider what they actually did. This was no subtle jockeying for position or influence, no verbal jousting. This was a treasonous betrayal of their oaths of allegiance. Oaths avowed less than two weeks before." The elf paused. "Why don't you use that famed intellect to deduce why I thought that the Chantry was behind the rebellion at the time."

The short-lived, ill-fated and spectacularly unsuccessful rebellion had not figured largely in Cassandra's research. That is, beyond the fact that it had occurred and had been resoundingly dealt with. She closed her eyes and considered the event, reflecting on the predecessor decisions and the possible motivations behind the players. She sighed after a short moment. "I take it you refer to the ramifications had their revolution been successful."

Kathryn clapped her hands together. "Well done, that's one reason! Had they been acting on their own initiative, I would have to believe that the conspirators would assemble and attempt to kill all the Grey Wardens in an area currently under constant threat by darkspawn. I would also have to believe that they had enough confidence in their ability to explain their actions to the King, who also happens to be a Grey Warden."

"I take it your credulity does not stretch so far."

"No."

Once more, unwelcome thoughts reared within the Seeker's mind. "You believe that they would not… no, could not successfully usurp the arling from you without Chantry support."

The Warden slumped. "No. Once again, you give the Chantry too much credit. And you don't give Darrian enough"

"Explain."

"While I'm sure he would have been delighted had I been killed, it was not the primary goal of Darrian's conspiracy to replace me as Arlessa." Kathryn smiled nastily. "Did you ever get to see a roll of the dead?"

"No."

"Pity. You'll find that the names on that list line up astonishingly well with another list. The list of nobles who supported Howe in his own treasonous attack on the Couslands. The nobles who knew about the Chantry's complicity in that atrocity."

A slow, horrible prickling spread over Cassandra's scalp as the elf's words merged into an unwelcome shape and dropped into her mind. Her breathing stopped for a moment, and her mouth went dry. No, surely they wouldn't have...

"There it is," the Warden said happily, grinning and nodding at the expression of mounting horror on the Seeker's face.

"He... they..." she stammered.

"He encouraged all the nobles who could possibly have testified to the Chantry's complicity into a suicidal confrontation?' Is that what you're trying to say?" Kathryn said nastily. "Or, 'They were encouraged to attack their liege lord with empty promises of intervention with the crown?' Which is it?"

Cassandra sank down onto one of the wooden chairs and dropped her face into her hands. It made an evil sense. And despite there being no evidence for the theory, the Seeker also had no doubt that it was true.

Damn them. Damn them all. Damn the Warden. Damn the idiot priests. Damn Darren.

She sighed deeply and looked up at the Warden. "I am getting so very weary of defending the indefensible," she said flatly.

To her great surprise, instead of gloating, the Warden simply nodded. "It's hard, having your beliefs shattered."

Cassandra snorted; darkly amused that she had somehow adopted a mannerism from the sarcastic elf. "My beliefs are intact, Warden. It is the extent of the rot within the Ferelden Chantry that I find myself disinclined to deny."

Kathryn scratched the back of her neck. "Rot? It was only a few years ago that Martel, the head of the Templar order, murdered High Seeker Aldren. In the Grand Cathedral, no less. And with your sword too, if my informant is correct. Don't try and claim that the Ferelden Chantry is anywhere near as corrupt as the festering pit in Orlais."

Cassandra's expression darkened at the reminder. "Acknowledging the corruption in one does not deny the existence of the same in the other."

Kathryn nodded, accepting the point. "True. Besides the fact that Darrian is Orlesian, I'm glad to see you accept it. You know why he initially came to Ferelden, don't you?"

The Seeker kept her face blank. Knight-Commander Darren had been assigned to the Denerim Cathedral long before the Warden had been recruited from the Circle. Knight-Divine Darrian had not, as far as she knew, ever visited Ferelden before he Vanished. And she had used the present tense to describe him, making it sound as though she thought he was alive. "No," she said, wondering what the Warden's answer would be.

"There are... factions... within the Chantry. Power and influence ebbs and flows between them. They join to form loose coalitions when their goals align, but these are transient in nature, and prone to betrayal."

Cassandra fought to stop herself rolling her eyes. "I am aware of the political realities within the Chantry," she snapped.

The elf took no offense at her tone. "I expect you are, at that. After the Blight, the ruling faction in Ferelden essentially failed. People saw the way the priests protected themselves while leaving the people to die on the Cathedral steps. People saw how not one single templar fought the darkspawn, while mages stood up to the archdemon and took it down."

"Again? We are covering this again?" the Seeker said with a sigh.

"It bears repeating," Kathryn replied with a dismissive wave. "After the Circle was given independence, the Chantry clung tenaciously its failed policies - presumably deciding that if something hadn't worked so far, then they should just do it again even harder until it did work. A hard-liner replaced Greagoir at the Circle. The Grand Cleric demanded concessions from the crown to which she had no right; to which even before the Blight she would have no expectation."

The Seeker nodded, agreeing with the analysis so far.

The elf adopted a lecturing tone. "Darrian recognised the self-destructive path upon which the ruling faction was set. He took it upon himself to change it. When Tavish," she stopped and snickered for a moment, "fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck, Darrian vetoed his anointed, intensely mana-phobic replacement and installed a moderate instead. When Morag and Rylock stood trial, it was Darrian who negotiated with Eamon for their punishments."

Cassandra frowned, both at the blasé dismissal of Tavish's murder by the Warden's pet Crow assassin and at the suggestion that the Knight-Commander's negotiations could in any way be measured a success. "Then he did a poor job. Rylock executed and Morag rendered impotent."

The Warden raised a finger and waggled it back and forth. "Only if you think his objective was to minimise their punishment."

Cassandra took a deep breath. "So, this Knight-Commander engineered the downfall of his own allies? For what purpose?"

Kathryn glared at her. "The Divine wanted an excuse for a damned Exalted March! That's what! He simply obliged."

The Seeker pursed her lips together. Divine Beatrice had been ill-disposed towards Ferelden; infamously so, in fact. But had she been so blinded by hatred as to desire such a momentous action? "How does one follow the other?" she asked carefully.

Emerald eyes rolled, silently and eloquently deriding the question. "He 'engineered' a visible loss of power. To the Ferelden crown, he used the punishments of Rylock and Morag as symbols that the Chantry folk in Ferelden had lost their way. To the Chantry authority in Orlais, the issue was presented as a petulant newcomer to the throne stamping his feet and cutting long-held ties."

Cassandra opened her mouth to interrupt, but she was waved down.

Kathryn continued. "The Circle had unprecedented support from both the ruling class and the general public. So he released Bryant from his cell and installed him as the Knight-Commander of Kinloch Hold. To Eamon and the Circle, it was an admission that the mages had been treated poorly, and the situation would be rectified. To the Chantry, the loss of control was presented once again as the crown assuming powers and making demands to which it had no right. Do you see?"

Cassandra nodded mutely, waiting for the rant to subside.

"He played Eamon. He played Alistair. He even played Anora," her damaged voice returned to a more normal tone temporarily, "an achievement I was quite impressed by, in all honesty. But while they sat in the palace giving each other mutual applause for all their great accomplishments, the Big Bitch in Orlais had all she needed. While the Ferelden crown was thanking the Maker for delivering to them such a wise and reasonable Chantry representative, said representative had positioned a templar force in the south, ready to attack the instant the order to march was given."

For a long moment, the pair glared at each other. Eventually, the Seeker crossed her arms defiantly. "You could not have known that at the time."

The mage shrugged. "True. I was suspicious, but I had enough to do at the time that I took his actions at face value. He seemed determined to clear the air between the Crown and the Chantry, allowing a fresh relationship to develop. I assumed that he had two objectives. One, prevent the Chantry from self-destructing. And two, protect it from outside forces trying to take advantage of the turmoil."

"People like you," Cassandra said, her voice dripping with irony.

"Exactly," the Warden replied fairly, even pointing at the Seeker to acknowledge her point. "People like me. Had I not been in Amaranthine, I'd probably have pushed for even more concessions." She laughed bitterly. "I thought Darrian recognised that, as an institution, the Chantry would be distrusted for a generation or more. I thought that his actions were in response to that fact. Shows how much I knew, eh?"

Cassandra looked at the dejected expression and decided to offer the mage a tendril of camaraderie. "You could not have known the extent of his schemes, or of his true motives."

"Perhaps. But in a matter of weeks we had four previously unthinkable events occur. A templar executed for attacking a mage. The Revered Mother of the wealthiest Chantry in Ferelden stripped of her rank and banished to a convent. A decent man placed in charge of the Circle. And the Grand Cleric of Ferelden recalled to Orlais in disgrace. I should have asked myself if it was too good to be true."

The Seeker rubbed her jaw. "But there were still challenges to overcome, in terms of a successful March," she said evenly. "Relations between Ferelden and Orzammar were strong, and the dwarves would likely stand with your countrymen, or even restrict the lyrium trade. Under Bryant, the mages could well have supported your army too. And given their treatment during the Blessed Age, the Dalish would likely aid you against an Exalted March."

"True," Kathryn agreed. "And my Wardens would have fought too. But there was only one person capable of bringing all four forces together."

"You."

A nod. "Me."

"And so he... acted against you."

Another nod. "Oh yes. He acted."

The pair sat in silence for a long time, both thinking on just how the man had acted. Eventually, Kathryn said, "Would you like me to continue my tale? We are nearing our meeting with the Spirit of Justice. And somehow, I just know you are dying to learn more about it."

o_ooo000ooo_o

The next few days were long and tiring.

The bodies of the nobles and assassins were magically preserved for evidence, and stored in one of the cellars; behind a magical barrier. A single wagon containing the slumbering patient and the samples of ore and granite was brought into the Keep.

I ordered the other wagons along to Soldier's Keep without stopping at the Vigil. It was too risky keeping the contents close to a stronghold with so many glaring security holes. I did not know if the ex-nobles had any insider help. So Oghren, Anders and Keenan drove them off into the night.

Seranni was still unconscious when I put her through the Joining. Her sister refused to leave her side, and demanded to Join the Wardens as well rather than be forcibly sent away. Initially, I suspected that her acquiescence was an act, put on just so that she could remain only through Seranni's Joining. But she drank the blood without hesitation or fear. Both sisters survived, and over the next few days as the pair recovered, the elf mage's motivations became a little less clear.

It took Seranni a few days to recover from her ordeal. The Dalish warrior was shockingly weak after she first woke, and distraught at the realisation that she was no longer with the Architect. Velanna proved unable to calm her down, but long before that became apparent I locked them in a room on the far side of the Keep.

I created a pair of enhanced alchemical potions for them, which proved to be the key to breaking the Architect's hold. Duncan had once told me that the Wardens drink darkspawn blood to master the taint, but I was coming to a slightly different conclusion.

I hypothesised that the Joining was successful when a Warden managed to incorporate the taint within them. Be it by strength of will, fate, natural constitution, divine will or some other agency. It was Avernus' potion however, that truly enabled one to master the taint; to turn it into a weapon. And in mastering the corruption, Seranni broke the mental shackles the Architect had placed around her mind.

After accepting her new station, the young elf had been aghast on learning about her sister's actions after she had disappeared. The thought of so many dead humans and the inexorable reprisals against the Dalish clans horrified her. Velanna tried justifying her rampage, with little success. Not when it had taken a handful of Grey Wardens less than a day to rescue her. A rift between the pair formed.

A squad of soldiers was dispatched to protect the workmen sent to quarry the dark granite. With the area more or less free of darkspawn, enraged sylvans and homicidal elvish mages, the work progressed quickly, and the first shipments of usable stone arrived within the week, much to Glavonak's delight.

Herron was delighted with the quality of the silverite ore, though Wade was far more interested in the wood I'd harvested from the ancient sylvan. With all the raw materials I'd sourced, the pair had all the guards at Vigil's Keep well kitted out.

I spent the next few days sorting out the unending little things that needed my attention, during which time I found Nathaniel's advice invaluable. When not learning the art of administration, I studied the Architect's notebooks and gently interrogated Seranni about her experiences. She claimed not to remember much, but she did have some insights into how to keep the taint at bay in an individual. The concepts were documented and added to my growing report to Weisshaupt.

Woolsey responded to my passive-aggressive tactics of just sending her the bills by the simple expedient of investing the entire haul from the Kal'Hirol treasury into the project to get the roads and infrastructure in place to manage the anticipated trade. In order to make it semi-legal legal, given that I'd already documented the bonus, she essentially made each of the five Wardens part-owners of the enterprise. It was the only reason I didn't have her arrested on the spot. The expected income would be nice, but future gold was not gold to spend now.

With fewer bandits around and more traders based at the Vigil, tax revenues had started to flow once again. I had accomplished it with such alacrity that Woolsey gave me a large sum of gold as an advance on the income.

A warm friendship slowly blossomed between Sigrun and Seranni. Initially the duster escorted both Dalish elves around the Keep, ostensibly to familiarise themselves with the fortress. Seranni appeared to enjoy the cheerful dwarf's company, but Velanna soon abandoned the pair to their own devices. Those devices including some saucy, evening readings of the more illicit novels in the library - usually accompanied by Seranni's flaming cheeks and Sigrun's cheeky grins.

Velanna and I found enough similarities between us that we could remain civil. We spent our evenings swapping spell lore and theory. Much of her superiority complex came from her (quite justifiable) belief that my Circle-centric education had left me ignorant of my Elvhen heritage. But when introduced to the lost Dalish art of the Arcane Warrior, her attitude was readjusted quite satisfactorily. The idea that a shemlen-educated flat-ear knew spells thought lost for centuries knocked some of the incivility out of her. Once the tension between us had been drastically reduced, the majority of our time together was spent discussing the Architect and the possibilities around sentient darkspawn.

I chaffed at the unrelenting demands on my time. Being an arlessa was a lot less exciting than I had originally anticipated, especially since the mountain of paperwork and documentation I was required to read and sign did not appear to shrink no matter what effort I put into it. Morosely, I thought that even setting fire to it all would not help.

The sheets would probably reform out of the ashes and multiply just to spite me.

Finally, I managed to get the truly important items dealt with. I needed to get to Amaranthine to personally investigate Bann Esmerelle's papers and effects.

Nathaniel agreed to remain behind at the Keep to prevent the paperwork from piling so high that snow would collect on the top sheets. His secondary task was to evaluate the remaining nobles in the arling for advancement; there being a few recent vacancies. I suggested that he also look to knights and younger, non-heir children for talent. I was not about to overlook someone capable just because of the randomness of birth order.

Surprisingly, Adria's orphaned mabari seemed to discover a kindred spirit in Seranni. They were both lost in a new world. The mabari responded to the name Seranni gave her, Falon'fen. Though it was not yet a true bond, I was pleased to see them together.

Having three female elves in the party would usually be considered an invitation to any group of unwashed, unkempt men travelling nearby. However, the groups we passed were all uniformly polite and civil to us. The one exception was a pair of Dalish, who recognized Seranni and Velanna.

They were polite, if distant to Seranni, but spoke to Velanna with barely concealed hostility. Without context, I could not follow the conversation, but I refused to let them verbally abuse one of my Wardens.

Oddly, rather than exacerbate the issue, my defense of Velanna seemed to sooth the situation somewhat. On parting, the Dalish elves let the Warden sisters know that their clan's Keeper had passed on. Seranni was devastated, while Velanna looked... lost.

They refused to speak of the encounter, and neither Sigrun nor I pressed them, despite our curiosity.

We made good time, unencumbered by the plodding ox-drawn wagons, and we pushed to reach Amaranthine in a day. Still, the sun had set before we arrived at the gates, and it took a little chat with the gate guard to let us in.

I wanted to head straight to the ex-Bann Esmerelle's residence, but my audible stomach growls paid pause to that idea. Instead, we headed directly to the inn near the Chantry, hoping that it was still serving food this late.

The flickering torchlight and close smells of the city repulsed the Dalish sisters, allowing them their first agreement since their Joining. They both found the dancing shadows and bright torches hard to bear on their unaccustomed eyes, and the retch-inducing aromas of human and animal waste had them staring at me in disbelief that any sentient individual would want to live here.

I was glad I would not have to introduce them to an Alienage. They'd probably have started a riot.

In the inn's common room, we ran into the lumpy-faced dwarf woman who had accosted Sigrun. She was sitting alone, in a dark mood, nursing a pint. On spotting our entry, she once again started berating my friend, before Sigrun gave her a heartfelt apology and offered her a ring as compensation for her actions. The ring owned by her noble friend in the Legion who had taught her to read.

I questioned her choice, but Sigrun was adamant. She felt that she had done wrong, and was determined to do right.

Fair enough. I could certainly understand that.

I turned to Mischa and asked to buy the ring back. Suspicious eyes narrowed at my offer, but avarice and vindictiveness were alive and well in that gaze.

"Gotta be worth at least twenty sovereigns," Mischa said with a leer at Sigrun. It wasn't difficult to see what she was trying to do. But I wasn't playing that game.

"Take thirty," I responded immediately, to the accompaniment of sudden gasps of shock from just about every member of the party, sans Thunder. As they all looked at me in silence, I opened the purse at my hip and noodled through the coins.

"Thirty?" the dwarf eventually blurted. "She's not worth that!"

I gave her a pitying look. "I agree. She is worth far, far more. Here," I finished, holding out the purse of gold. "Thirty sovereigns."

Mischa stared at the offered purse for a long moment before taking it. I had half-expected her to snatch it, but she accepted the leather bag gently, almost with reverence. "This will go a long way." She frowned for a moment, before grudgingly adding, "You've done right, Sigrun."

Sigrun nodded, and gave the ugly dwarf a small smile.

My Warden was quiet for a time, but the food we ordered was hot, plentiful and filling. Her irrepressible cheer soon broke through once more, and an hour or so later, we left the inn - minds full of cheer and bellies full of hearty, rustic fare.

Esmerelle's papers were very enlightening. A few of her personal journals were missing, but the account books were all there; at least, they were all in the not-quite-hidden-enough niche in her study that Sigrun spotted after a search of about three seconds duration. The Bann had been a scrupulously exact records-keeper. The set of books that carefully laid out all her official incomings and outgoings were thorough and seemingly complete, as though she was expecting an audit. The hidden set, with damning details on the identity of the smuggling gangs in the city, were far more useful.

They were written in a cipher, of course. But the decryption key was kept in the same room, just in a different hiding place.

I am eternally grateful that stupidity is not contagious.

Aiden was summoned. His discontent for being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night soon vanished, as he planned a series of arrests. Documents detailing payments and cargoes were copied and recorded, ready for the magistrate's eyes.

Catching smugglers in the act was a far cry from having hard evidence of the crimes of those in charge of the organisation. You could always find more lackeys, but taking down those in charge made a huge difference.

It was past the midnight bell by the time I finally returned to the inn. I had no interest in staying in the ex-Bann's house; sleeping in her bed.

At sunrise, my Wardens helped the Constable and his men to arrest and detain the smuggler ringleaders. Some tried fighting, and briefly regretted the decision. Within a few days, half the criminals in the city were either in custody or exile, their caches of goods impounded. Hard currency and jewelry was confiscated. Textiles and manufactured goods were auctioned to merchants. Perishable foodstuffs were given to the Chantry-folk whose duties included feeding the poor.

All in all, it had been a profitable week. A bunch of dead traitors, dozens of smugglers caught or killed, and several hundred sovereigns worth of goods back in the economy.

On the fifth morning after our arrival, a grey, drizzly day, Oghren and Anders rolled into town.

"Boss!" Oghren called, standing up on the wooden seat and waving at me. "What are you doing here?"

I pushed my way through the bustling marketplace towards the wagons. "Oghren! Shouldn't you be on your way back to the Vigil?" I asked as I reached him.

He grunted, but leapt off the wagon, landing with a squelch in the thick mud of the staging yard. "Aye. But I figured you'd want me to chase down the deserter first," he grunted.

"Deserter?" My eyes flicked over to the other wagon. Anders was unhitching the ox, and there was no third member of the group. My shoulders and spirits dropped. "Keenan took off?" I asked rhetorically.

Oghren grunted an affirmative. The misty rain coalesced on his beard braids and dripped off the end. He always just seemed to ignore the weather. "Aye. Sparklefingers gave him something to drink one night. Took the pain in his legs away. He got the recipe and bolted. I figured he'd head back here to his lady. You seen 'em?"

I frowned, but shook my head. What was her name again? "No. Nina, wasn't it? I haven't seen either of them. But we only got here a few nights ago."

Anders stepped over. "Things are a little busier here than the last time," he noted, observing the crowd. "Did our Dalish friends make it?"

I gave him a smile. "Yes. Both of them. They're wandering around the city now, compiling a scorecard of all the ways you shemlen are inferior to them."

He looked a bit worried. "Is that wise? Velanna might decide it's a good idea to sink the city into the harbour!"

I shrugged. "They're having a bit of trouble keeping their disdain at those sort of levels. There's a wonderful bakery near the inn whose owner makes the sweetest pastries you've ever had."

"So?" he asked, baffled.

"So, Velanna and Seranni have discovered the joys of sugar. They have a sweet tooth worse than Sten. And the baker has a daughter working as a maid at the Vigil, and we saved her during the darkspawn attack. He offered to feed any Grey Warden for free, but that was a recipe for bankruptcy, so I insisted that we at least pay something. So, Wardens eat for copper, rather than silver."

He nodded, but suddenly looked at me, his face expressionless. "Kathryn, I'd like to talk to you. In private," he said his voice suddenly cold.

I raised an eyebrow, but nodded my assent. "As you wish. How was Soldier's Peak?"

"Dryden and his sprog are making a good go of it," Oghren said, scratching at his beard. "They're using it to store their stock. His brother is all set up; and I'd put his work against any of the Orzammar smiths any day. We picked up some good pieces from him. A handful of nice swords and a real good volcanic aurum sword and dagger set. The little hottie'll love 'em."

"Will I?" Sigrun asked, unexpectedly appearing at my side. "Or are you talking about some other hottie?"

Oghren coughed and spluttered a bit at being caught out. I looked down at her. "Where did you come from?"

She grinned up at me. "What? I'm not allowed to browse the market stalls?"

"Sure. But I didn't expect you to show up just then."

Sigrun shrugged, her gleaming Paragon armour iridescent in the misty rain. "I thought I'd track down Mischa again. The money you gave her will help to start a new store here, but I told her about the trading post you're setting up near Kal'Hirol. If she's as quick as she used to be, she'll be able to establish herself there. I think she might even forgive me completely if it works out." She looked up at me. "I think I get what you do. You help people to help themselves."

I smiled and nodded. "Sometimes, all someone needs is for someone else to believe in them."

She blushed lightly. "Thank you. Anyway, I was in the market and saw Oghren stand up on his wagon and yell out to you. I figured I'd come over." She clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "Now, Oghren, you said you had something I'd love?"

He nodded and reached into the wagon, looking quite relieved to be facing away from us. He pulled out a pile of sacking which unrolled to reveal an exquisite, golden-coloured sword and a matching, gleaming dagger.

Sigrun squealed in delight and grabbed the weapons, hefting them in a very competent manner. So competent in fact that several nearby bystanders backed away.

"Thanks Oghren!" she said, leaning forward and giving him a light kiss on the cheek.

Anders smirked at them, and then took up the narrative. "The new pets are settled in. You were right, you know. They're like stray cats." He reached around to his hood where Ser Pounce was ensconced and scratched the cat's ears absently. The feline pushed its head up against Anders' fingers, purring in delight. "You feed them a few times and they're your best friend. They produce a prodigious amount of shit, but they seem very happy with their new housing."

I couldn't stop a grin forming, even this close to that blasted cat. It helped that I could think about the things I could accomplish with tame dragons. "Where did you put them?"

"We found some stables built against the cliff behind the keep; they were originally designed to house the griffins. They were pretty decrepit, but solid enough for the new occupants. By the time we left, Levi's nephew had taken over their care. He's nutty for them. Oh, I had to dip into the gold you left at the Peak to pay Levi for their feed. I've got all the paperwork for that harridan back at the Vigil."

"Just so long as it doesn't turn into paperwork for me, I don't care," I said easily. "What happened with Keenan?"

Anders sighed. "He was in a bit of pain, and wasn't too keen on us not stopping at the Vigil. I diluted one of your lyrium potions and cut it with a healing salve. Add a pinch of some dried madcap and it makes a good pain-reliever."

I frowned. With a lyrium base, that could be bad news. "But wouldn't it be addictive?"

He nodded. "After a while, maybe a few months, sure. But it was only meant to be a short term solution, until I got his legs mended. Without healing, he'll be relying on the potion for pain relief. We really need to find him, Kat. He knows how to make it, but not how dangerous it is."

I grumbled. "It will have to wait. There are still darkspawn sightings coming in. Kristoff needs to be tracked down too. And he's in the Blackmarsh."

At the word, several nearby people made some signs to ward off evil. Wonderful. When I was given the arling, no one mentioned that there was a part that the population considered evil.

I needed to speak to Nathaniel.

What a name. Blackmarsh.

Oghren and Anders offered their own take on the name, pointing out that the 'marsh' suffix pretty much ruined any chance of the name being associated with anything positive.

The trip back to Vigil's Keep had been uneventful. In the past few weeks, either bandit numbers had decreased markedly, or they'd learned not to attack wagons. Either way, I was happy.

Anders had not been happy about the other Grey Wardens. Blood Magic did not sit well with him at all, and having two maleficars in charge of Soldier's Peak was just the sort of thing that made his usual, joking demeanor vanish.

Oghren did not see the problem, but then, self-inflicting an injury to tap your power was not a cultural anathema to dwarves. He'd fought side by side with a berserker who needed to be kicked in the daddy bag to get his rage going. Sigrun laughed when he pointed that out and declared that she had known of him too.

That wasn't to say that Oghren liked the Peak's inhabitants. He thought that Avernus was bonkers and Jowan a wet blanket, but he couldn't care less that they could use blood to power their magic.

It was a point that Anders was unwilling to let go. He raged long and loud at me, rehashing tired old arguments that had long since been resolved in my mind. For the first time, I began to see the wisdom behind keeping secrets from Warden initiates. It was only really after facing darkspawn as either short, intense threat like a Blight, or a long, sustained campaign over years that your mindset changed to accept that Grey Wardens fought them by any means necessary.

It did not help that Seranni and Velanna agreed with him, and it was only that I swore an oath that I was not a Blood Mage, nor that I intended to ever become one that they agreed to let the matter drop.

It did give me some useful experience, however. I was going to have to man the Peak mostly with dwarves. And it put a bit of a crimp on my ideas to turn it into a templar-free Mage Circle. Unless I could somehow keep their abilities secret.

Nathaniel was proving his administrative abilities at the Vigil, keeping the matters requiring my attention to a bare minimum. It took me barely an hour to examine all his decisions, and for the most part I simply ratified them. The way he was going, he wouldn't be let out of the Keep to take a piss, let alone go on a mission.

Woolsey was still fully committed to establishing the Kal'Hirol trading post, to the point that she found no time to find something wrong with my actions of the past week.

Once more, I took my Wardens and left the Keep, to track down the wayward Kristoff.

There was something very wrong with the unholy miasma that clung to the marsh like a lingering fart. The many nearby tears in the Fade contributed to the meta-physical polution, which to my consternation, we could do nothing about.

It was not just the physical odour, which was bad enough, but the spiritual drain. Any humour expressed by my Wardens was only the darkest of sarcasm, the wit sharply biting.

It did not appear to be a recent condition either. It had affected the previous habitants too. Suicide seemed to be rather more popular here than in the saner parts of the country. A skeleton with an empty bottle of (presumably) something toxic had a scrap of paper in the other hand. Aparently, offering a trail of riddles was worth breaking off an engagement, and said engagement ending was worth killing oneself. It was trivial to follow the trail, ending with a powerful magical ring.

We found a scrap of parchment upon which the final Testimony of a merchant was penned. He had taken gold in return for spiriting three maidens away from 'their baroness', and had then accepted more gold from the baroness to hand them over to her. His guilt had also driven him to suicide, but his cache had been nearby.

Thunder and Falon'fen bounded ahead of us at one point, sniffing around an empty campsite. While neatly kept, it had obviously been unused for some time. I recognised the single-minded attention to order - it had been obvious in Kristoff's room at the inn back in Amaranthine.

I stiffled a groan and gingerly got to my feet. It took barely an instant to realise exactly where we were.

Sigrun gasped in horror at the 'sky'. She shrank back, eyes wild. "By the ancestors! Where are we?" She reached out and grasped Seranni's hand, who seemed quite pleased to have someone to hold onto. Thunder trotted over to the pair and gingerly licked Sigrun's free hand.

"The Fade," Anders said, still on his hands and knees and shaking his head to clear it. "That darkspawn's spell tore a portal and hurled us through it."

Velanna looked around, seemingly quite comfortable at her surroundings, but she did express surprise at the presence of the non-mage Wardens. "How did that creature bring the durglen here?" she wondered. "And the animals?"

I rolled my head around, trying to ease the stiffness. "Figuring out how to get back is more important," I pointed out. "Is everyone all right?"

Oghren sounded like he was on the verge of freaking out completely. "First I have to deal with your bloody dreams, and now the sodding sky's all messed up. If this is what having magic does to you, I'm glad I'm a dwarf!"

"Aye," Sigrun agreed fervently.

"We need to find a way back, and soon," Anders said, looking around. "Our bodies are back in the mortal world."

Oghren gulped. "You mean, a wolf could be chewing on my leg right now?" He spun around to face me. "We need to get out of here!" he insisted, his voice on the edge of hysteria.

"Calm down," I replied, my voice low. "Thunder and I have been trapped in the Fade before. There are ways out of here."

Thunder barked an affirmative, confident in my ability to return his pack to the proper world.

Anders and Velanna gaped at me in a comically similar fashion. "When were you trapped in the Fade?" Anders asked.

I shrugged. "A sloth demon trapped me in its realm while I was fixing the Uldred cock-up."

He frowned at me. "Having a quarter of the people in the tower become abominations is a bit more than a cock-up, Kathryn," he said sternly.

"Didn't you say that Mr. Wiggums took out three templars?"

It was his turn to shrug. "Well, I didn't say nothing good came of it."

A cry of distress caught our attention, which turned out to be the darkspawn who'd trapped us here. His voyage of self-discovery involved coming to the realisation that the Mother had betrayed him. He wailed and beat at his breast in the sort of theatrics you'd expect from a Denerim fishwife.

It didn't stop him from attacking us though. After we butchered the remains of his darkspawn force, he scarpered away, howling in fury and despair.

The Fade-version of the Blackmarsh was geographically similar; with each corresponding tear in the veil marked by a trio of desire demons performing a ritual. I assumed that they were working to keep the tears from being repaired from the far side. We killed them. Even had the assumption not been correct, I would have slaughtered them anyway, just on general principles.

"I hate desire demons," I grumbled as I scraped demonic ichor from my armoured boot by the simple expedient of wiping it against a Fade-log. "I really, really hate them."

Velanna raised an eyebrow. "Why these in particular?"

I didn't respond, but my silent flush gave Oghren a clue.

"Don't worry about it, Kat." He gave Velanna's chest a leer. "Not everyone can have such womanly splendor."

"Shut up Oghren," I snapped in lieu of a false denial.

Velanna glared at him like he was a pile of dogshit she'd just stepped in. "Avert your gaze, dwarf!" she demanded.

"Hur, hur," he chuckled, ignoring both our instructions. Sigrun slapped him on the back of the head. A noble effort, but so long as he drew breath, Oghren would not change.

We found some shrines that I'd first encountered when freeing myself from the sloth demon's realm while cleansing the Circle. I encouraged Oghren, Sigrun and Seranni to allow the power from shrines embodying physical traits to infuse their Fade-bodies. Velanna, Anders and I shared the power of the shrines embodying mental and magical prowess.

We passed a wraith that had formed around the remains of a strong, but fearful personality. What was left of the woman could not see us, and did not respond to our questions or presence.

Eventually, we reached the Fade-version of the township, or at least the walls of the town. A figure squawked in surprise on seeing us, and bolted. Though the figure bore the shape of a human woman, it turned out to be a specimin of local demonic fauna. We dealt with it accordingly. And permanently.

The township itself was full of spectoral figures. They followed the well-worn paths they had followed in life; stuck in a purgatory and unable to move on to the Maker's side.

There was one armoured figure however, who was obviously not a townsperson.

He glowed. He shimmered. Where proximity to demons was often a struggle to maintain a sense of oneself; standing near him was... invigourating. Intoxicating. His presence sang to my mana like nothing I'd ever encountered.

He was Justice. An anthropomorphic personification of the ideal. One of the Maker's first children.

o_ooo000ooo_o

"But he does not embody the ideal now, does he?" Cassandra interjected.

Kathryn's face screwed up into an expression of indecision. "Debatable."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

The Warden took a deep breath and sighed. "Justice, as a concept, is subjective. It is not justice to punish the innocent; that is obvious, indeed, the very definition. But when an act is defined as sinful by one party, and not by another, then justice to one is injustice to the other. It is a sin for a man to kill a man, but it is not a sin for a lion to kill a man. The lion is simply acting in a manner consistent with its nature."

Cassandra adjusted one of the chairs and sat. She steepled her fingers and leaned forward in thought. "Classically, I agree. But how can the act of destroying the Kirkwall Chantry be seen as anything other than an injustice?"

Kathryn gave a soft snort. "How parochial. Tell me, Seeker, do you see the corruption of one of the Maker's own creations as a sin? A spirit of an ideal, given life by the Maker himself, witnessed the unjust actions of the Chantry - and he acted in a manner consistent with his own nature. What is the sin in that?"

A cold shiver ran down the Seeker's spine, even as she outwardly scoffed. "Is it justice to fuel a murderous spell with the life-force of a virtuous woman?" But even as she said the words, doubts flourished. Was that the truth? Had a divinly-spawned spirit been corrupted by the actions of Chantry-folk?

The Warden shrugged, unconcerned. "If a spirit of Justice acts, can it be anything but justice? Can such a spirit act contrary to its nature? Perhaps it is your blinkered view of the world that is wrong."

"Or perhaps Anders corrupted the spirit. Even your friend Varric confirmed that he refers to it as a spirit of Vengeance."

Kathryn actually smiled. It was a wry smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Who corrupted him then? Anders, or those who abused their power over him? Listen Seeker, it is very simple. As horrific as the Anihilation of the Kirkwall Cathedral was, it was justice. Either Justice acted correctly in punishing the Chantry for its actions, or the Chantry was complicit in the corruption of an ideal."

Cassandra bit back a retort and took a long, slow, steadying breath. "We are getting side-tracked. What did the spirit do when you first encountered it?"

o_ooo000ooo_o

The spirit explained the awful history of the village. The Baroness was an Orlesian Blood Mage who retained her youth and beauty by sacrificing village children. The population eventually revolted, and burned her mansion down with her inside. She had cursed the village for their defiance, sundering the Veil and depositing the entire place in the Fade.

Now, rather than killing, she instead feasted upon the souls of those trapped here with her. Justice had finally decided that the situation was intolerable, and was determined to do something about it. Unfortunately, even in his own realm, he did not have the strength to challenge the Baroness alone.

Obviously, we had to do something about that. Loghain would have jumped at the chance to have been a part of the attack on the last remaining Orlesian occupier. It was in his memory that I leapt to the challenge.

The talking darkspawn appeared at the Baroness' side as we breached the gates. Few words were offered before the fight was joined. There didn't seem to be any need.

Predictably, my Wardens were more than a match for the Baroness' forces. Her minions were steadfast and loyal, but their individuality had been buried, leaving them predictable automitons in a fight.

Only the First was any threat. And facing three powerful spellcasters neutralised that threat quite satisfactorily. Justice disembowled it with a broad stroke, ending the fight.

The Baroness' reaction to losing immediately proved that the First had once again picked the wrong ally. You have to wonder just how idiotic you need to be to join forces with those constitutionally incapable of seeing their allies as anything other than expendable assets.

She used the fading remnants of his life-force to hurl us from the Fade, the final gambit to prevent us from killing her.

Once again, I found myself cracking my eyelids open over sandy eyes. And, yet again, I found cat-piss in my hair.

"Anders!" I bellowed. "That's it! That bloody cat is a hat!"

"Uh, Kathryn," he said weakly.

I spun around to vent my rage on him, only to have it vanish in an instant. The hairs on my neck stood up straight and proud. I stared in horror as the corpse of Kristoff rose slowly to its feet.

"Maker's breath," I breathed, readying a fireball.

But it was no demon posessing Kristoff's body. In tones of wonder, Justice revealed himself in the mortal world.

He was surprised as we were, if not as horrified. I'd seen skeletons before. And I'd killed animated corpses too. But never one so... recently dead. It gave the scalp-crawling horror a certain immediacy.

His memories of the world were filtered through Kristoff's own. He could recognise objects and people, but not instinctively. He had to pause to consciously rifle through what remained of Kristoff to maintain a conversation.

His skills were not in question, however. He hefted a spiked mace with elegent competence and ease. He was not going to be a liability during a fight in this world.

As we filed back towards the ruined village, I felt a distinct change in the air. The tears in the Veil had vanished. Though the Veil in the area was not robust by any means, there was no longer any direct egress from the Fade into our world. In each of the locations where a tear had been, we found enchanted items.

Had they been the source of the tears? Or had they manifested on killing the demons maintaining the tears?

It hardly mattered. A full set of powerful armour was assembled, and it fit Justice well enough. Discomfort did not seem to bother him, so ill-fitting straps and blisters were not a problem.

The village itself was not unchanged either. There was a new heaviness in the air, a certain sense of malevolence that pervaded the place like one of Oghren's silent but deadlies. The source was hardly a surprise. The Baroness had returned to the mortal realm with us, clearly baffled that her spell had encompassed her as well. Pleased beyond measure, but baffled.

It ended in violence, of course. It always did.

Of all the Wardens present, only Oghren, Thunder and I had ever laid eyes on a Pride Demon. It came as no surprise to me that the Baroness lost control of her form to the demon she had sold her soul to in return for youth and beauty.

Still, Oghren had charged forward at a dead run well before the transformation was complete. The demon spread its arms, bent forward and bellowed a challenge, which turned into a shriek of pained rage as the berserker's axe thudded deep into the beast's kneecap.

"Ha! Fight or talk, you sodding turd!" he shouted as he wrenched his weapon free and ducked under the wild return swipe that would have sent him flying half way back to Vigil's Keep. No one could duck quite like a dwarf.

I let loose with a blast of ice, freezing the demon in place. With one arm outstretched, it overbalanced and fell to one side.

That opened the floodgates. Each of my Wardens were determined to get their own licks in on the gigantic abomination. Three mages were more than enough to keep it frozen, petrified or paralyzed as the warriors hacked away. Chunks of ichor-covered demon flesh went flying all over the marshy ground as axes, swords and daggers rose and fell.

Seranni surprised us all by using Oghren's shoulder as a springboard, leaping high up on the demon's spine-covered back. Grabbing one of the spines for support, she jabbed her blade down hard into the demon's neck, opening a gaping, lethal wound.

She was thrown clear as the demon reared in agony, but the blow had been struck. Falon'fen was at her side in an instant, standing protectively over her as the demon thrashed around. With Anders on the scene, her injuries were seen to in a matter of moments, and it became merely a matter of waiting for the creature's body to realise that it was dead. The corpse hissed as spat as it dissolved into a vile slime, further polluting the dead land.

Had I not been a witness, I'd have attributed the sun breaking through the perpetual cloud cover as poetic licence. But within an hour of the final death of the Baroness, a wind tinged with sea salt blew in from the north-east, and sunlight lit the bleak landscape.

Justice expressed a desire to explore the world for a time, rather than return to the Fade. I was unconvinced, but the ritual to send him back could more easily be performed with the lyrium stockpile back at the Vigil.

There were still a faint sense of nearby darkspawn, however. We split up, Seranni coming back to the Vigil with Sigrun, Thunder and me, while Oghren, Anders, Velanna and the Spirit of Justice would remain behind to eradicate the lingering darkspawn threat.

With any luck, Ser Pounce would have an accident.

o_ooo000ooo_o

AN: First, thanks to my reviewers - Pintsizedpsycho, MB18932, queenseeker, Mike, MrPowell, Alifangirl21, Eucharion (well done! My 100th review!), Melidel and Arsinoe de Blassenville.

Second, sorry for the delay in this chapter. The company I work for is going through a restructure in preparation for an IPO, and they had a competition for someone to be 'the voice' of the company. I entered, and won. And while I'm still a long way short of my end goal (being the first on Bioware's call list for voice actors for Dragon Age 3) it was a lot of fun narrating the company's online training modules and branding slideshow.

I have received some messages from people asking about the style of foreshadowing events in the Kathryn/Cassandra sections before describing them in the main story. It's a technique I saw used in Brecht's play "Mother Courage and her children", and I wanted to try it.

So, one more Awakenings chapter, then back to the original plot.