Chapter 46: the Recognized and the Resolved
Murchad Crewe
When we arrived at Heidrunscap I was shocked at how hideous it was. Walking through the gates of the blockade we were confronted with the vision of the mine entrance. It was a gaping maw cut into the side of a mountain that towered in a high arch. On the sides were the remnants of a gate, so long neglected and weathered that the wood was as gray as the stone and splintered. The gate had brass and copper brackets and hinges that were near black with tarnish. Smoke was belching forth, as if it were the mouth of a monster breathing foul air.
"That is not good," muttered Sellose beside me, "the last Dwarven mine I was in did not have all this smoke."
I mulled over what had been said before pointing to a woman being carried out of the large entrance on a litter carried by two ragged men, "This is not a Dwarven mine, Friend. If the Templars are controlling it, it is probably far worse within."
The woman being removed from the mine was muttering; her eyes were glassy and stared as if she could see things that no one else could see. Her skin was pale and she looked too rickety to work with heavy lifting, but a Templar at the entrance quickly examined a cord dangling from her belt, holding it gingerly between his fingers, and ordered the men carrying her, "Take her to the healer. She may rest for a while, but then she has to go back. The knot marker shows that she has not met her quota for today."
"But…she cannot work like this. She can barely lift her bowl and, even if she could, she has no sense of what she is doing…" one of the men tried to reason with the stern Templar.
"Unless you want to take her place among the sifters, then you will do as you are told."
The man looked frightened for a moment before hanging his head in defeat. The pair carried the woman to a tent pitched close to the mine entrance and gently lowered the litter to the ground by the flap. A harried man immediately exited the tent and examined the woman. He was dressed mainly in skins, his attire indicating that he was an Avvar and not from one of the farming villages. He looked grave and worried, his braided tresses falling around his shoulders in a thick black mass.
As Manning approached with us in tow, the man called out to him brazenly in impeccable Ferelden, "You have the gall to refer to my people as savages, and yet we would never treat our own so shamefully. This woman is so badly poisoned from the mine that she may not survive until sunrise and, if she does, she will be an empty husk of the woman she used to be. How can you justify this?"
"Silence, Apostate," commanded Manning, "or I will rescind my previous mercy upon you and put in in the mines as I did your predecessor!"
"Do that, Monster! When you dragged me here three moons ago you had no healer and your workers were dying far faster. Perhaps it would be better for me if I embraced the same fate as the others. I seem to be serving a greater evil by prolonging their suffering under you!" He raised his hands to Manning, inviting the same shackles that graced our wrists, "Here, chain me and drag me into the embrace of the deep darkness. Do it and spare me the shame you have steeped me in. My gods will be far more merciful than yours."
Manning growled, "Cease your blasphemies before I cut out your tongue myself. I am not of a humor to stay my hand when so tempted." He waved the man off, opting to ignore him rather than argue further.
The man made frustrated gestures at Manning's retreating back that were foreign to me, but I could ken from the enraged expression that it was probably the sign of a curse. The man then returned his attention to the woman, though I could hear a cadence of moaning coming from within the tent. The healer was fraying at the edges and, if his words were any indicator, those luckless souls who had been forced to work in the mines were becoming very ill as a result.
My attention was brought back to our situation when Manning charged the Templar overseeing the entrance into the mine, "Ser Fiske, I have two more inmates to work with the sifters."
The Templar squinted at us a moment before asking, "Would it not make more sense to have them work with moving the rubble. They appear stronger and could use men in that capacity. The sifters are mainly women."
"Heed me and do as you are told," Manning spat from atop his horse.
The man inclined his head in a shallow bow, intoning, "Yes, Knight-Commander." He took the leads to our chains from Manning's outstretched hand and we followed him.
We were led into the darkness and smoke. I could sense Manning watching us until we disappeared from sight, reassuring himself that he would not lay eyes on us again, though I had to puzzle over his choice of assignment. If he wanted to rid himself of us, why did he not choose to relegate us to the more strenuous, back-breaking work?
The acrid smoke brought tears to my eyes and I coughed, nearly choking on the sooty air. The air was thick and it took me a moment for my eyes to adjust as I stumbled in the murk. Sellose caught me by the shoulder once as I pitched forward.
He mused, "I had thought climbing a mountain was rough. At least on the outside I could both see and breathe."
We went from the entry tunnel into a larger antechamber. Large torches blazed from ancient sconces and we peered over a crumbling ledge into the cavern below. Laid out before us was some kind of ruin: stone houses and rubble strewn about. A large statue of a blocky figure lay on its side. Half of the face was fractured and a disembodied stone hand gripping a hammer lay on the ground beside it.
Sellose nodded, "Well, this was a Dwarven city at one point. This must be one of the lost thaigs that we heard about."
"What is a thaig?" I inquired.
Sellose explained, "Before the darkspawn came, the dwarves possessed a wide expanse of underground cities called thaigs. They were all connected by a vast network of tunnels: the Deep Roads. As the darkspawn multiplied underground, they began attacking the Dwarven cities and drove the dwarves out. There are only two Dwarven cities that remain now: Orzammar and Kal-Sharok. I believe there is legislation in Orzammar to rehabilitate and resettle another thaig … Kal'Hirol was the name. Something happened there recently, if the reports from Vigil's Keep are correct, but I am hard pressed to remember the details."
"How do you know so much about the dwarves?" I inquired; startled by the information he was sharing with me.
"The dwarves are a nation unto themselves and we have trade agreements with them. A leader should always know the people he must negotiate with. Besides, in my previous life we had far more contact with the dwarves because of the darkspawn. I was trained how to navigate the Deep Roads and during the Blight I had to deal with Dwarven politics." He reasoned as we walked.
It had been a shock to discover Sellose's true identity. I was still struggling to deal with the information and not begin panicking over the situation. We had agreed that I would continue to address him as Sellose for fear that the Templars would overhear us and discover his identity. That had the potential to gravely complicate our situation. The stakes were high and we needed to find a way to get him out of here and return him to Denerim, and yet his concern was for my sister and mother's welfare. It conflicted with everything I anticipated of a king, but it was simultaneously comforting. He cared for Mae and would do his best to aid her. We were not beneath his notice: he was one of us.
"Stop your yammering and keep walking," commanded the Templar from over his shoulder, jerking the chain impatiently.
We followed dutifully, but as we walked I noticed that Sellose studied the walls and structures. Occasionally he would reach out and run a questing hand over the tunnel rock. It was as though he was assessing everything and his brow furrowed with thought.
We were led down various inclines, through numerous doorways, staggered around a few labyrinthine tunnels until we came to a large cavern. A black river flowed through the bottom and turned a monstrous wheel that looked to be made of some queer metal that had a blue sheen to it. Between the moving wheel and the rushing water, there was a cacophony of splashing and creaking. There was also a series of wooden chutes and scaffolding there were not of the same quality as the other Dwarven structures, so I assumed that they had been created and added recently for the current work being done. The chutes stretched from a various smaller tunnels at the upper levels and they dumped water and debris down. The water from the chutes was brackish in color before it hit the river.
"Orzammar has something similar, except the river consists of lava. It definitely made things warmer. This is probably why the walls felt so damp. There must be a series of subterranean rivers intersecting here," Sellose reflected more for himself than for my benefit.
After walking down a series of walkways along the side of the cavern, we reached an encampment at the bottom by the water's edge. A long line of women kneeled at the edge of the river. Each woman had a pile of sandy debris and took scoops of it and poured it into a bowl. The bottom of the bowls appeared to be made of a fine cloth and they poured water into the bowl over the debris with a tin cup and made a circular motion with their arms, causing the water to sieve out of the bottom and into the river. The carefully examined the remains in the bottom of the bowls, picking out choice fragments of rock and then toss what they desired to keep in a bucket to the other side of them. Once the bucket was full, they would carry it to a wheeled cart and dump the contents inside. A woman stationed by the cart would then tie a knot in a chord that was attached to the sifter's belt; I was able to deduce that this series of knots kept track of how many buckets each woman gathered. Once the scorekeeper bestowed the knot, the sifter returned to the riverside. They looked like sleepwalkers going through the motions of an intricately repetitive ritual, giving no indication that they were aware of us or even of one another.
A Templar paced behind the women, casting them furtive glances until we approached. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Ser Fiske a withering glare, barking, "What are you doing here?"
"The Commander sent me down with these men and ordered that they should be put to sifting." Fiske explained meekly, seeming embarrassed by his charge.
The other Templar laughed mirthlessly, as if he had to force the sound out and it was either laugh or cough, "And what would he have me do with them? Their hands are too big and clumsy. They would probably lose more than they would gather. No! Take them to Ser Claridge and have them move scree from the Fell Tunnel."
"But Ser Manning said…"Ser Fiske began to contend.
"If the Knight-Commander should deign to lower himself to enter these humble halls, then I will take responsibility for it. However, he is so concerned with the world above he has forgotten us mortals he has consigned to the earth. He is truly beginning to resemble the Maker, as is his aim." The man disparaged Manning, taunting him harshly.
"Belth, the prisoners will hear you. What you are saying borders on being seditious!"
"Sedition is what brought us to these climes," the Templar bemoaned, dropping his voice slightly, "I have not seen the Maker's sun in ages. Every time I stagger from these caverns the sky is roofed with stars. I have forgotten what the light feels like in this night shrouded existence."
"This is necessary…" Fiske hissed, "Now resolve yourself, Ser!"
The angry Ser Belth swallowed back some of his ire and put on a chastened mien, "I am resolved. Forgive my outburst, but I stand behind my assertion: they must be sent to clear the tunnels and help to mine the ore. It does not make sense for them to be assigned here in an area that does not take advantage of their strength. You know that I am correct."
Fiske reluctantly nodded and concurred, "I agree, his order seems to lack sense, but he is our Commander. If he should find out…"
"He will not find out. He never comes here and will not discover that we have adjusted his order. If he does, I swear I will take the blame." Belth sighed, seeming very weary.
"Understood," Fiske replied, turning on his heel, affirming, "I will bring these men to Claridge."
Thus we were brought to another angry Templar who threw buckets and pick axes at us, attaching us together with similar shackles to the ones we had worn previously. My heart sank when the new chains were placed on us and I looked at Sellose, regretting that we had not escaped sooner when we wore the shackles that corresponded to the key that he held under his tongue.
Sellose seemed not to notice my worry, but focused on examining the tunnels, the other prisoners and our tools. He looked at the downcast faces of the men and women working and his face grew dark. When we had been left by the Templar in a tunnel with six other miners, instructed to find translucent blue veins in the stone and pile the enriched ore into buckets and drop the leavings on the tunnel floor, he gritted his teeth. Ripping his shirt off his back, he tore it into large patches before doing anything else; exposing his recently branded skin that still looked raw and red over his heart in the shape of a sword of mercy. The others with us stared at him in shock as he tore his own shirt into long strips and distributing them among us.
"What are we to do with this?" asked a balding man with a slight tremor in his hands.
"Tie it over your nose and mouth," he instructed, illustrating it by doing it himself, masking his face.
I regarded the long scrap in my fingers and gasped, "Why?"
The eyes that regarded me looked hard and angry, "To limit the amount of dust we breathe. The less dust in our systems, the better it will be for us. Today we will work; tomorrow we will find a way out of here."
"Why must we avoid the dust?" I pressed, confused.
"Lyrium," he spat, "They are forcing us to mine lyrium!"
I felt myself shiver, a sense of horror washing over me, "Raw lyrium can kill people."
"It is killing people! That is why they have had to raid the villages, because they need to regularly replenish their spent workers. That is why the woman was carried out of the mine on a litter. Anyone coming into contact with the stuff is slowly poisoned by it, but Templars are addicted to processed lyrium. These rogues are not sanctioned by the Chantry, so they are not supplied lyrium and trying to arrange deliveries from Orzammar might draw attention to what they are doing here. In order to feed their addiction, they have enslaved these people to mine it for them but these people know nothing of how to properly process or treat the ore, and they do not have the resistance to it that the dwarves possess. Bastards!" He was heated and began to swing the pick viciously. "The sifters are handling it more closely than the miners, so they probably deteriorate faster. That is why Manning wanted us to be sifters, even though they tend to be exclusively women. If we deteriorate fast, he will be rid of us that much faster, but the other Templars are not aware of his personal reasons for desiring us to be out of the way. They just assume we are like any other prisoner here. His secrecy worked to our advantage in this instance."
"How are we going to get out of here? They put new chains on us. The shackles will not match the key." I argued, growing more and more frightened with each new realization.
"The key matches," He reassured me, "Manning is the Knight-Commander and they always have one master key and a spare. His second in command, in this case Ser Fiske, also carries a copy of the master key. The noble Ser Manning probably has not realized that his key is missing because he so rarely uses them himself and leaves the management of the mines to Fiske while he works as a diplomat between Arl Crewe and Arl Boese, keeping them apprised of the Templar's activities."
My chest felt tight as I choked, "So my father knows what they are doing here…"
Sellose stopped and turned to me, seeming to gauge his response before he spoke, "Yes Murchad, I believe your father is fully aware of what is happening here and is endorsing it."
I closed my eyes against how they stung, which had nothing to do with the smoke in the air. I was filled with a sense of shame. My father was knowingly allowing people to be sent to their deaths, people he was responsible for, people who had served him and grew the food he ate off his table. I had always accepted the fact that he was cruel and attributed it to his nature, but had never known how completely vile he was and my feeling of disgust was overwhelming. It seemed so senseless.
"How does he think we can survive if he relegates all these people to the mines? The villages farm the food that the arling needs." I sputtered, feeling a rush of despair.
Sellose shrugged, "There is more to all of this. With the things that Ronan said to Manning, there seems to be something larger afoot."
"Larger than this?" I demanded, stretching my arms wide, indicating the whole of the mines.
Sellose nodded, taking another swing at the rock wall.
The people we had been in the tunnel with had listened to our entire exchange and they seemed as stunned as I, but for entirely different reasons. One woman exclaimed, "You are one of the Arlsons? Your father is Arl Crewe?"
I looked at her and felt sick. This was one of the people my father had allowed to be dragged here and I fought back the moistness in my eyes and intoned, "That man is no longer my father. I no longer recognize him as the root of my being! I despise him! Never again will I refer to him as Father!" The violence of tone caused the people to draw back slightly, staring in wonder.
"You are going to free us, then?" another man asked, his words edged with a vain hope that he seemed reluctant to recognize.
Suddenly uncertain, I looked back at Sellose and he affirmed, "Yes, we are going to find a way to free all of you. This I swear!"
"Who do you think you are?" a man asked sarcastically.
Straightening, Sellose pulled down his mask and stated stoically, "I am the King of Ferelden and this injustice will not stand!"
As unlikely as it might have been, I truly looked at him in that moment: his countenance, his posture, the righteous light in his eyes. Even with no shirt and torn breeches, his body covered in dust, he looked like a king. Recalling the previous day, I had seen him cut down darkspawn in battle to defend me and a defenseless woman valiantly. In my heart, in that moment, I embraced the truth that I had been told, but had found difficult to accept: this man was the King, my King. I could not resist but take a knee before him, bowing my head, "I swear, I will serve you! I will follow you to the Dark City itself, if you but ask!"
The other people with us followed my example, clearly awed.
When I raised my head and looked him in the eye again, he gazed down at me and his eyes were determined, "Rise! I have not earned this honor yet, but I will."
"How can we escape?" one woman breathed brokenly, tears soaking her voice, "This is hopeless."
"Someone has already escaped, and she was near muddled with lyrium poisoning. If the water can find a way out, then we can find a way out, but I need to come up with a plan. It is not enough that a handful of us should escape. We need to get out as many people as possible. For now, we must continue with the guise of being defeated, we must work until I can examine the defenses and create a plan. I am relying on your secrecy to keep us safe."
This was a gamble, but my unguarded words to the ragged King had brought us to this point. There was no turning back now. Recalling the words of Ser Belth, I affirmed evenly, "I am resolved."
The others repeated what I spoke and Sellose… King Alistair Theirin… nodded, accepting our fealty.