Chapter 3: Ameridan's End

"You have a unique gift," Dorian said, wrinkling his nose as he stared at the barely recognizable remains of Gurd Harofsen. The Avvar's blood froze on the icy stone floor. His followers, the Avvar who called themselves the Jaws of Hakkon, had scattered and the Avvar of Stone-bear hold were in pursuit. Theo glanced over at Dorian, curiosity on his blood-spattered face. "You seem to have a knack for finding crazy humans bent on becoming gods."

Theo's laugh echoed in the vast chamber and his breath steamed in the cold. "I suppose that's true." He yanked his arrows out of Harofsen's corpse. The body was part human, part distorted creature: the results of trying to host the soul of the Avvar god, Hakkon, in his body. He grimaced as he wiped off the arrowheads on the cuff of his leather glove. "Corypheus wanted power for the sheer sake of it, though. This man? He lost everything and was just trying to get it back. I almost feel sorry for him." He twirled the arrow in his fingers.

Dorian wrapped his arms around Theo. "Power corrupts," he said. "I can't be from Tevinter and not know that. This man," he said, prodding the body with his toe, "would have used what he gained to overtake first this region, then more of Thedas until he was stopped. You just stopped him before he could truly get started."

Theo nodded and replaced the still-gory arrows in his quiver. He rested a hand on Dorian's arm, smiling; and then his smile faltered and his brow wrinkled. Dorian started to ask what he sensed, but Theo shook his head and held up one finger. Dorian held his breath and listened. The cold itself was sharp and seemed to buzz in his ears; or maybe that was just his blood freezing into crystals as it tried to pulse through his veins. He heard cracking: slight at first, then growling. Then a crack, louder than any lightning strike Dorian had ever heard, or caused.

He looked up. The ice overhead was sundering. Chunks of ice fell around them. Theo wrapped his right arm around Dorian and held him close. He held his left hand aloft and the green pulse of the Fade spread around them into a dome of energy that shielded them from the collapse. Dorian watched, entranced, as the ice bounced off of the shield. Yet again he should be dead; so many times in this strange odyssey he should have died, and yet here he was, seeing and living the impossible.

Still more impossible things seemed to be in the works. The ice fell away and light came pouring through a square hole in the ceiling. But a shadow also descended upon them, and Dorian only hoped Theo's luck held out a little more as they both dove out of the way of the falling mass.

I'm dead this time. I'm really dead, he thought as his chest constricted and the ground around them shuddered. He tried to breathe but dust and cold choked him. He tried to move but couldn't.

Then the weight lifted from his back and he could breathe and move. He rolled over, gasping. Theo lay on his back, bow caught under him as he gasped and tried to push himself up. Dorian conjured a fireball in the palm of his hand and held it before him, ready to cast out as the dust cleared. His heart caught in his chest when he saw the dark, hulking shape of a dragon looming before them.

They'd faced unfair odds before. If there was one thing Theo had grown to love it was an unfair fight, when the odds were not in his favor. Dorian guessed it went back to him always feeling the need to prove himself. But one tired mage, one exhausted archer, and the handful of Inquisition scouts who'd stayed behind, rather than go with Thane Sun-Hair's Avvar, were no match for a dragon, even one still groggy from being encased in ice.

"I love you, but I'm not fighting this," Dorian murmured to Theo. He kept his eyes on the dragon and the fireball in his hand burning bright. He could get it off and buy them a few seconds of precious time to escape. Already he was surveying their position, looking for exits or at least cover.

Theo got to his feet, his light armor creaking. "I don't think we have to," he said in a low voice as he took a tentative step toward the dragon.

"Fasta vass, what are you doing?" Dorian snapped, clambering to his feet. He caught up with Theo, but they both stopped short when they saw the shape of a gray-haired elf huddled on the floor. He clutched a staff in his stiff hands and his breath came in shuddering gasps.

He looked up, searching them both with piercing pale green eyes, deep set in a face etched with elvish vallaslin and deep lines of worry around his eyes and mouth. "Did… did Kordilius send you?" he asked in a raspy voice. He tried to stand, but only got to one knee. Theo lunged forward to help him, but stopped and stared at him instead. "Emperor Drakon," the man said, looking up and resting one elbow on his knee while he braced himself on his staff. "Do not tell me he is unknown to you." He smiled slightly.

"Maker's breath, you're him," Theo said, his green eyes wide. He dropped to his knees to be on the same level as Inquisitor Ameridan. "This is the forty-second year of the Dragon Age," he said after a moment of thought. "You've been frozen all this time."

Dorian flicked his gaze between Theo, Ameridan, and the dragon, which was still very much alive. Its sides moved like an old bellows and its front claws twitched. He'd fought a dragon before, but they'd had the Iron Bull and his Chargers along. Dorian hadn't ever been so close to a living dragon, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't nervous.

Theo hardly seemed to know that the dragon was there. He hardly seemed to notice Dorian, at that, and Dorian could not help but feel a twinge of jealousy as Theo spoke with Ameridan. "The world has changed," Theo was saying, staring at his left hand. The bright glow was covered by his heavy gloves. "You probably wouldn't recognize it."

"What of the Inquisition?" Ameridan asked. He sounded weary, in pain. His shoulders shook with a spasm and he gritted his teeth together until it passed.

"Successful, in the long run," Theo answered. "But… so much happened it would be impossible to explain. And you probably wouldn't believe any of it."

Ameridan tried to smile. "Try me," he said.

The moments that followed were surreal, moments Dorian had never thought he would experience even after his extensive travels and training. The three of them sat in a circle on the freezing floor around a magical fire Dorian ended up conjuring; the massive dragon, Hakkon Wintersbreath embodied, occasionally groaned nearby. Every time the dragon twitched Ameridan shuddered and seemed to grow paler, if that were possible. Every time Ameridan coughed or shook Theo started and looked worried and helpless.

"I've been locked away with Hakkon for eight centuries," Ameridan told Theo, a ghost of a smile playing upon his bloodless lips. He sighed. "I gained peace, but lost…" He closed his eyes.

"Yourself," Dorian said, surprising himself. "To do this," he said, gesturing at the dragon, "you lost your love; your friends; your own time."

Hakkon groaned; Ameridan fell forward onto his hands, his staff clattering on the floor. Theo knelt and placed a hand on the ancient elf's shoulder. "The Avvar disrupted my magic," Ameridan said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I can't hold any longer." He looked between Theo and Dorian with his pale green eyes, before resting his gaze on Theo. "This role. It requires everything of you. Do not lose yourself to it."

The dragon shifted. Muscles rippled beneath hard scaly skin and the eyelids lifted, revealing bright blue eyes that were both startling and frightening in their intelligence. When the great beast opened its mouth it felt colder in the chamber around them. The dragon gave only a cursory glance at Theo and Dorian, but stared at Ameridan. It opened its massive jaws and roared, a sound of ice cracking and avalanches rumbling down mountain sides. A sound of anger and rage, of pain and vengeance.

Dorian grabbed Theo's shoulder and tugged him away from the beast; Ameridan's form wavered in the dim light. Dorian blinked and the first Inquisitor was gone. Hakkon's roar, louder and more confident this time, froze the air around them. Dorian quickly cast a wall of fire around himself and Theo, which helped dissipate the dragon's icy blast. Hakkon stared right at them, mouth curving in a smile—or as close as a dragon could come to smiling.

"We're not saying goodbye," Theo said suddenly, nocking an arrow on his bow and looking deep into Dorian's eyes.

"None of that sentimental tripe," Dorian agreed, even though he knew he was probably going to die for certain this time. He brandished his staff.

Hakkon made a rumbling sound almost like laughter before flapping his enormous blue-gray wings and heading for the hole in the ceiling. Theo swore and let his arrows fly, but they bounced off of Hakkon's hide. Dorian was able to cast off one fireball that caught Hakkon on the tail; the beast didn't even slow. It was a bit insulting.

Theo sighed. "I had so many questions," he said after a long moment, when the roars of Hakkon Wintersbreath had died away. "So many things I needed to know."

Dorian fumbled at his belt pouch and found a vial of lyrium. He shot it down and dropped the glass tube to the floor as the lyrium began to warm him and allow him to feel his magic returning. He was expending more energy than he normally liked, just with the simple act of keeping warm. "You were different Inquisitors, leading different Inquisitions," he reminded Theo. "I don't know that he could have helped you as much as you hoped." Theo glanced over at him. His eyes were shadowed and his cheeks red and chapped from the cold. Dorian sighed. "I'm sorry. I know how much you wanted this."

Theo nodded once then turned his eyes up toward the ceiling. "You're right," he said at last. "Come on. We have a dragon to kill."

"You're not serious."

But Theo was grinning, that crazy smile he got when he was about to go looking for a mismatched fight. Dorian wished he could talk sense into him, but knew it would be pointless to try.

And he still loved him anyway.