CHAPTER 13
Dorian was not at all pleased with how quickly he concluded his errands. He relied on them to keep his mind occupied during Fitzwilliam's absence and now he was left sitting in his armchair with a glass of wine and a book that was failing miserably at distracting him.
The practical application of such medicines have been studied with varying degrees of success. An argument could be made for latent healing powers in the healers themselves as much as for the attributes of the plants.
Huffing, he closed the book and set it aside. He'd read that line three times and lost focus again and again. His busy mind preoccupied itself with too many things to read. He needed to be doing something. Anything but this endless filling time. His feet bounced, his fingers tapped. He knew if he didn't come up with something soon he'd find himself pacing and Dorian soundly refused to pace about, worrying the carpet into threads. He had a brilliant mind, surely he could turn it toward something. More wine would be a good start.
The wine had warmed, he realized with a distasteful twist of his lips. He set the glass aside and stood. If his mind refused to focus on the simple task of reading, perhaps now would be a good time to delve into some mysteries. Tevinter had no shortage of them these days. He bounced on the balls of his feet, energized by the thought. He was, after all, so cautious not to do magic around the mark at the moment, given the effect it had on his magic. If he wanted to test the current state of things with any kind of control now, his lover and therefore the mark in Skyhold provided the opportune moment.
He instantly marked fire magic a bad call, given how many times he had nearly burned down the manor in the last few months. Then again… Dorian held up a hand and allowed the magelight to flicker to life in his palm. Made of fire light, it lacked the heat and destructive properties of fire proper and more related to Mater's illusionary magic, as far as he determined. Once he had thought that would be the bridging point for him, a gateway into mastering healing magic. If his Mater proved so adept at both talents, surely he could use his own skills with illusionary magic to finally develop more than his meagre healing capabilities. But with no progress, he'd long since given up on that dream.
The fire flickered blue in his hand, an invitation to dance if ever he saw. It appeared stable enough, but then as one of his most used magics it required very little power. He poured a little more into it just to see what would happen only to jump backward as the light in his hand exploded into a shower of brilliant blue sparks. No more chance for panic other than that initial startled leap. The magic fell to the floor and vanished as soon as it hit the carpet. Dorian patted himself down, turning bare arms this way and that and thankfully found no injury. Dots of light fluttered about when he blinked, killing his night vision and well, any vision. At least temporarily.
Well, one learned nothing from a single, failed experiment and those prone to over-cautiousness suffered a lack of discovery and ingenuity. Nor did they prove any theorems. He needed another attempt, if with a touch more prudence. He squared his shoulders and lifted a hand once more. Never let it be said that Dorian Pavus didn't strive for brilliance in the face of potential folly.
This time, he tried to shape the light after calling it up. His mother could have crafted it into something spectacular with ease. A dancing creature of myth, or a ship at sea. That was the bit of intricacy he'd never quite been able to finesse. While the light itself was easy to craft, even easy to cut free from himself and set in place in the waking world, the shaping of it largely eluded him. He managed to shift the magelight from a flickering flame to a five-pointed star, though it took considerable concentration. Dorian was just feeling the thrill of triumph when he felt the magic destabilize. This time he managed to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head away before he was blinded, but he could still feel the violent dispersal of magic as the spell fell apart.
"That is not what was supposed to happen," he scolded his open palm. Still, he felt invigorated, eager, even, to learn more. His head spun with theories. So far it appeared that the trouble centred around regulating his power. That without his consent his magic was trying to break through him and into the world at large. The interesting part was that it didn't appear violent. If it were a demon, the forerunner of things in the Fade wanting to leave it, Dorian would expect a battle - the demon fighting through him to get out. But that wasn't happening, he could feel it. At least in the cases he'd tried thus far. The energy he was using was… more than it used to be. More powerful, more efficient, more eager. Of course he'd relied heavily upon fields of study he excelled at. Fire, primarily. And it was why he never did the same with magics he didn't quite have a knack for.
"A different discipline, then." He wiggled his fingers, casting his eyes about the room and muttering away to himself. "Perhaps something small. I could always use some practice with the spirit branch of magic." He'd not had call to use his necromancy since Corypheus' defeat. "Or maybe some force magic. If we're in the mood for something different why not do something Southern." In the far corner of the room, where he kept his medical kit, he spotted a small, bone spool. Generally he kept all his items perfect arranged in the kit, but this spool awaited a new supply of stitching silk and so had been placed to the side with all the other empties. "Perfect." He smiled as he approached the display.
At some point in his life Dorian had come to terms with reality - he was never going to be a great healing mage. He simply didn't have the gift for it, his magic taking more after his father's hot head than his mother's deliberate, calculated mentality. So he threw himself into the mundane healing arts, studying them and the body as fastidiously as he would any branch of magic. His leap from favouring fire to developing his talent with Necromancy was borne from his passionate study of the body, of renewing flesh. As with all his studies, once he realised he had a knack for it, he delved as deeply as he could. It had afforded him some brilliant discoveries but he longed to do more. To help more people. To actually save lives rather than bring a portion of it back for a time.
Dorian laughed to himself as he fingered the delicate bottles and instruments. Here he stood, a mage with a gift for destruction who wanted nothing more than to mend.
He shook his head, snatched up the small bone spool, and moved to the center of the room before holding it up. A bit of effort and he'd suspended it in a bit of force magic. It floated once he took his hand away, quite satisfied with the stability of magic. Until, with that premature thrill of success, the shield imploded and sent the spool rocketing at his head. Dorian ducked, heard it thunk into the wall behind him, and turned to scowl at it. "Fine," he huffed, straightening his stance as well as his tunic and moving toward where it landed. "We'll try again."
It went on and on like that. Repeatedly, just when he felt the joy of success the spell would falter and send the spool soaring across the room. For the first time in a long time he wished he'd chosen a softer material to work with. He'd selected the bone because it was lightweight but tough enough to boil. Tough enough, also, to leave several chips in the wall and threaten several bruises to his person. He was sweating from exertion when he finally put the spool on the table and lifted his glass for a drink. He winced. "Oh, right," he puffed, glaring at the drink that was still warm and distasteful.
An effort of will and he felt cold frost the metal goblet. Then, abrupt and unstoppable, his magic exploded. He blinked a little as his vision went white, frost flakes falling from his lashes onto his cheeks. Only then did he notice the fine layer of ice entirely covering the room and all its items.
It was as if he had thrown down one of Sera's ice flasks. Only it wasn't very thick, more like a late fall frost than anything. Well, he considered as he wiggled his mustache back and forth and listened to the ice coating it crackle, at least I've learnt something. It wasn't just the power control. If it was his drink would have been the only thing affected. So it also had to do with range, maybe even intent. He lifted the cup to his lips anyway only to discover he'd frozen the drink solid. "Well," he groused, frowning. "That was a bit colder than wanted."
Perhaps it was time to try something else. Something that required him to use magic the way other mages did. After all, Dorian knew he was different. Most mages were indelicate. They thrust their consciousnesses into the Fade and took a fistful of power to turn to their purposes. It made one very good at fueling a spell, but not particularly good at crafting one. When Dorian reached for his fire he did not just grab the first bit of fade he could find. He would send his consciousness out into the sleeping world and seek out its places of fire there. Sometimes, as for magelight, it was in the form of a hearth - warm and welcoming - an easy power that wanted to assist. When he was in battle he sought out sulfur and magma and pulled them. Mastering them, but at least using them as they were meant to be used. His way, he'd always been told, was dangerous. He risked the molten earth burning his soul out. But he and fire were kin, he understood it, could control it.
Dorian settled the goblet on the table. Thanks to the Tevinter heat the frost was already melting, clearing patches about the sitting room. He considered remaining there and risking even more damage. If for no other reason than he'd have an excuse to redecorate, but decided against it and moved outside to the garden.
There was a kind of balance to magic. If you had an affinity for destruction, you wouldn't be a good healer. If you could manipulate air you were less able to shape earth. As far as Dorian had been able to determine all magic, regardless of power or complexity, stemmed from the core elements - water, fire, earth, air and that ineffable something that made life, in all its forms, possible - that which scholars had come to call spirit. A romantic tribute to the spirits of the fade, no doubt, from whence all magic came. Dorian laced his fingers together and thrust his arms out, cracking the knuckles before letting arms fall to his side and rolling his shoulders.
He was very good with destruction magics. Fire, lightning, even raising gales of wind. Even necromancy, while not a destructive magic per se, lent itself more to mastering death and fear rather than actual creation. He'd worked hard at the others, tried his hand at manipulating plant life, at moving water, at healing, but for all his knowledge he could only manage little things. Because he was unwilling to take his destruction magic and force it into a mold that was the wrong shape. But that was what other mages did and if Dorian was truly going to test the limits of what was going wrong with magic in Tevinter, he needed to do as the Vints did.
The vining flowers on the garden wall would do nicely. Dorian called on his fire, by far the easiest for him to grasp, as well as the most powerful, and slipped it into the vine. The plant started thrashing wildly, objecting to the intrusion, but enough will could see anything bend to it. He focused, using fire to move the vine until it was swaying almost hypnotically, a brilliant purple bloom against the navy moonlit sky. Everything seemed to be in order. No explosions of power, not even the wilting Dorian anticipated from forcing heat into a plant. Of course, he utilised very little of his power. It was time to go bigger.
Another vine rose to sway with the first as Dorian walked his way across the soft garden moss with careful steps. It was almost a dance, his feet and hands moving to manipulate the plants, mirroring their sway. Soon, a mass of flowers and vines wriggled over the entire wall and Dorian had expended a great deal of power to create the display. He could see why other mages prefered this method - the feeling of all that power bending to your will without taking the time to hunt out its match within the Fade to fuel it. Harnessing magic in it's raw form and making it do as he wished. Dorian was delighted, feeling downright proud of himself when he felt something twisting about in his magic. Something that shouldn't be there. Something that tore his control away and broke free into the plants.
As one, the flowers turned their faces to him, fixing on him as if they had eyes a moment before they flew forward. Dorian quickly backed away, calling fire to his hand but waiting to hurl it. After all, the vines couldn't be all that long. They'd reach the end and he'd be safe, able to observe. Of course, that was not what happened.
The vines, stronger now than they had any right to be, pulled free of the trellis and darted for him. He was too slow and one tangled about his leg. Another made its way around his arm. Both tightened painfully, squeezing as they tugged him toward the wall. The wall full of sentient plants. The wall full of sentient plants he'd created.
"This is either going to be a terrible death," Dorian grumbled as he tried to shape his now-slippery fire magic into a tool, "or a hilarious story. If, you know," he grunted, "I live to tell it."
It was no use. Too much of his power was still wrapped up in the plants and try as he might he couldn't pull it free. He could use a knife to cut himself free, but he wasn't a crazy person and so didn't exactly keep weapons about his person when he was in for the night, safe and sound in the manor. His mind quickly ran through the options. One, cut free - no blade. Two, fight free - vines are preternaturally strong. Maker, but that wall is getting close. Dorian dug in his heels fighting harder, with all of his considerable strength to slow his progress. Three - use magic. It sputtered in his hand. Magic is broken that's why you started this experiment in the first place, you madman. More vines reached out. The wall grew nearer still, and they had no issue coiling about his neck and torso. "Four," he horsed out as the vine tightened, cutting off his air. "Pray and get very very lucky."
Eyes closed as Dorian realized he didn't even have time for that. He was going to die in the garden, strangled by a plant he animated, while Fitzwilliam was away. Well, if that wasn't a lesson on hubris he didn't know what was. He could only just feel Fitzwilliam through the bond, the impression and direction of him and little more, and latched onto that as his vision tunneled to a fine point. He was out of air, out of time.
And suddenly he could breathe.
Dorian blinked his eyes open. He wasn't sure if he'd passed out but as his vision focused he realized he lay on his side. Collapsed in a heap and attempting to pull in desperate gulps of air. Rolling over he felt the sticky sap wet through his clothing. Vines crunched under his weight, but they'd all fallen to the ground, limp and lifeless once more. He lay on his back, looking up at the night sky as his chest heaved in an effort to replenish the air it had been debted.
He sat up, after a short while, propping himself onto his elbows and surveying the scene. The vines, only moments ago alive and dangerous, lay innocuous once more. What happened? Did they simply expend the energy he'd infused them with? No, that didn't seem likely, not with the sheer volume of power available to him. One vine, close to the wall, seemed to have been cut. Dorian struggled upright and crawled over to it. He didn't make a habit out of being on the ground, but honestly he was still a bit shaky.
It had been cut. Down low, near where it sprouted out of the soil. He was curious as to who had cut it, admittedly, but he was more curious about if that was why the plant had stopped. There was no reason why a wound should have done any real damage to the spirit inhabiting the plant - and yes, Dorian was forced to admit some kind of spirit had broken out and into the world through his magic. The power wasn't likely to leak out of the plant either, so the cut, as interesting as it was, really had nothing to do with where the power had gone. And it was. Gone. Not a whisper of it left.
Dorian sat on the soft green moss, tangled vines strewn haphazardly about him, and pondered all the mysteries this night had bred. He'd begun this experiment looking for answers and instead found only more questions.
He got to his feet, an indeterminate amount of time later, and carded his fingers through hair that had long crossed the threshold from unkempt into warm fire and candlelight of his chambers called to him, and he moved forward, drawn to the comfort they promised. "I," he declared to the world at large, stumbling on shaking legs, "need a stiff drink."
Two weeks. He'd actually counted the days - like a lovesick fool pining away, plucking flower petals and spending days sighing forlornly as he gazed off into the distance. For all that preoccupation with Ataashi's absence gripped Feladara's mind, he might as well be. A couple of missions, a few drinks, some conversation and a whole lot of flirting and already his thoughts shifted in the man's direction when deprived of his presence. Was that all it took to adle his mind? Have him watching tavern doorways in the hopes the baby dragon would walk through it with a smile bright in those damnable baby blues. Have him make enquiries amongst associates to see if they'd spotted the newest assassin amongst them out and about - heard of any kills that seemed meticulously planned in the manner Fel knew marked them as his. Have him running the rooftops to keep an eye out for a sign of that expensive costume of his, travelling away from the dockyards he knew so well up in the upper ring where the nobility made their homes. Where he knew the baby dragon disappeared towards after work was done. He had work to do, plans to carry out and information to gather and Creators, but distance was needed to keep objective. Why in the gods names was he haunting the high borns' manors like if he stumbled upon just the right one, he'd find Ataashi.
He told himself it was to continue gathering more knowledge on the assassin - discover the mysterious place he called home somewhere up in the wealthiest part of the city. He'd long suspected Ataashi had ties up there and the gossip amongst Minrathous' assassins said he was on retainer for one of the Magisters. A personal assassin. Some spoke further still of him having a high born lover. There were a handful of Magisters who'd take a male lover and Feladara spent enough time liberating information for the upper ring to know where they lived. He had his suspicions on whom to watch most closely.
But he'd had not seen hide nor hare of Ataashi, even here where an assassin who favoured the garb of a storybook hero would stick out like a sore thumb. Feladara couldn't shake the feeling that some form of foul play was afoot. Waiting for an attack that never came, wondering at the ridiculous sense of betrayal he couldn't quite shake. That an assassin, clearly a novice and definitely new to the area, could disappear so entirely? It was suspicious and unsettling.
He wasn't worried.
He wasn't.
This is pointless, he sighed and slowed his run to a stop. Perched himself high atop the surrounding walls of one of the more grander estates atop the hills. No wards on the walls, not even the gates and a quick stones throw of a fun little flask that reacted to magic told him all the wards were centred on the manor itself in an exceptionally economical and practical use of power. Without stretching them to cover everything, the power centred on protecting the buildings themselves was far stronger. The wards far superior.
So he was at the Pavus estate then. The Pavus matriarch was known for her impeccable control and her son for his...unique ways of thinking. Combined with the pragmatic manner with which the Pavus patriarch was known for wielding his magic, the way in which they crafted their wards seemed fitting. If not frustrating and much harder to breach. Which was the entire point of course but made for poor thieving and Feladara got a great deal of his information from pilfering within the homes of the elite.
Feladara wasn't there for a touch of light fingered browsing and so it didn't matter a great deal whether he could break the Pavus' wards or no. And there was no sign of his errant partner so lingering there would sooner see him spotted than anything else. He was acting like a fumbling novice and it had to stop.
He stood, readying himself for a return to streetside when every hair on the back of his neck stood up and a shiver crawled its way down along his spine with a frigid touch. Feladara froze place, fingers twitching towards the daggers at his back as every sense he possessed screamed of danger. Of the unseen threat. A deep breath, the search for calm as much as it allowed him to sink deeper into what his instincts told him. He could feel it. So strong he could almost taste it. That moment before lightning struck where the air felt charged, when your skin prickled and the scent of ozone filled your nostrils.
Magic. Powerful and uncontained.
Running would have been the better option and yet his eyes fixed on a point somewhere in one of the many garden courtyards in the Pavus estate - drawn almost against their will to find the younger Pavus, who stood before a trellis covered in winding vines. Just in time to see them come to life and snake out with deadly purpose. To see Pavus fight to control the magic he'd obviously used to bring the plant a modicum of sentience and just like the whispers around Minrathous had told him, the powerful mage was struggling with his magic just like so many others.
He froze with indecision as the vines wound about the mage's frame and began to encase him in their unrelenting grasp. When Pavus began to disappear within the seemingly endless coils of winding greenery and dragged from his feet. Feladara took a step - to offer aid, to run away it didn't matter because a voice stilled him in his tracks before he completed the decision.
It's wrong! It cried, screamed, thundered, begged. All wrong, so wrong. He made us wrong! Broken and wrong!
Feladara's breath punched from his lungs as the twisted form ghosted upward from the thrashing tangle of vines. A perversion of a humanoid shape, writhing just as the plant did and pulsing with a sickly light shot through with flame. Wrong! Came the continued cry. The accusation. All wrong!
These fucking Vints and their perversion of magic, Feladara snarled, watching as the spirit - for that's what it was - strangled Pavus to death with his own magic. As it screamed in agony for being made to do something it was not intended to do. A spirit of verdure forced to become flame.
When the spirit turned it's gaze, rose up and stared straight at him, Feladara stared right back - unable to do anything else. Out of sympathy, out of respect for something once noble and pure tainted due to arrogance. His heart damn well ached for this poor being who endured agony because of a stupid mage's hubris.
He'd had enough. Of this place, of Magisters and Vintish mages. Of this whole fucking day.
Again that charge on the air, the moment before lightning hit but oh if before he stood nearby to the strike now he stood in the middle of the storm. A flash of light exploded behind his eyes, his body swaying towards the tiles and when he blinked the dancing dots of colour away and steadied his feet the vines lay limp and Pavus was crawling his way free - panting and gasping for air. Feladara wasted no time in turning tail and running, letting stumbling feet carry him far away from that garden and the uncontrolled magic raging within it. Pavus was a nightmare waiting to happen - power fueled by arrogance and Feladara wasn't going to stay around to become victim just as that spirit had. His search for Ataashi within the upper circle could continue at a later time when his heart didn't pound in his skull and his skin didn't still crawl with that lightning touch of too much magic.
Creators, he needed a stiff drink.
A/N:
E: Okay, so. Life. Life hit me hard these past few months and unfortunately this story was one of the many things that suffered because of it. I hated not being able to work on it or to spend the time writing with Rikki but life didn't really care much for what I wanted *laughs* Thankfully, the bulk of what happened has been sorted as best I can for now and I can focus again on writing. Which means, new chapter for those who have been patient and stuck with us through the long unintended hiatus.
R: Yeah. It sucked. Hard. But now we're back, and intend to get this story back on track. We have so much awesome planned for our boys.
E: So many awesome things. This story is really important to us and we're determined to tell it. To give it all the attention it deserves.
R: And this chapter is the start of that! Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!
E: Thanks everyone!