Chapter 7: Demon Magic Time Crap

Summary:

If he revealed a bit more about himself than he wanted in his goal to find out why Samahl looks at him like he's seen a spirit, he can always tell himself he did it for the Qun. Despite everything, he's always had that excuse, no matter how horrible a job he's done at following orders.

Notes:

**Trigger Warnings for Chapter**
References to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

It was so obvious that the Herald was avoiding long conversations with any of the people he had traveled to Redcliffe with that even Sera noticed. Sera, leaning against a tree beside the road, frowned as she and Bull watched Samahl speak to Grand Enchanter Fiona, Dorian, and Mother Giselle a few paces away. "Too good to talk to us 'cause he's calling the shots now?" she wondered.

There was a long procession of Rebel Mages, now "allies" of the Inquisition, walking along the road towards Haven with Inquisition soldiers guiding them. It was slow going. The Rebel Mages were not all a fighting force. Some of them were elderly, Tranquil, or children. The term "Rebel Mages" seemed to encompass everyone regardless of what Circle they were from, whether their Circle rebelled, or how old or capable they were of rebelling against anything.

One of the mages, a girl who must have only been fourteen, looked around nervously on the road and caught sight of Bull and the glowering Sera. "Felicity, don't stare," chided her peer beside her. "Don't give any of these people an excuse to change their minds."

The young mage Felicity put her timid and afraid eyes back on the road and kept walking.

Bull frowned. None of this was good. The rebel mages were all afraid. It would have been better to conscript them all because they already had no choice to turn down Samahl's offer to join the Inquisition. At least if they were conscripted, they would have more protection and other angry parties would be less inclined do them harm because of the conscription.

Hours ago, Bull, Dorian—or was it Fabien? No, the fop had definitely called himself Dorian—and Samahl had gone to Redcliffe to negotiate with the Tevinter Magister Alexius about the Rebel Mages, despite knowing it was a trap. Their assassins took down the Tevinter Guards, and everything was in position to sack the Magister, when the Magister suddenly began to wax poetic about his grandiose love affair with someone called "The Elder One" and how he had the power to save his dying son. After throwing a fit when he saw his dead Vint fighters around him, he shouted at Samahl, "You . . . are a mistake! You never should have existed!"

Alexius held up an amulet. Bull could remember how every cell in his body felt drawn to the glowing trinket floating above the Magister's hand. Bull didn't know what it was or what it did, but Dorian Pavus must have had a clue, because he shouted, "No!" and flung out his hand to intercept it with a shot of magical power.

A rift opened. Instead of looking like it was made of living crystal like the others, this rift was like a whirlpool, and when it appeared, power blasted out of it like explosives and knocked Samahl and Dorian to the floor.

One minute, Dorian and Samahl were curled up on the floor, and the next . . .

Each time Bull replayed his memories, he knew his eye had not been playing tricks on him. The small explosion had vaporized Samahl and Dorian into black smoke right at the same instant that they both reappeared in the black smoke.

They looked like they'd taken a swim. Samahl's dark blue robes were wet, bloodied, burnt, and dirty. His eyes were intensely angry as they stared down Alexius with a fire and rage Bull had never seen in his eyes before. Samahl was wounded. Five bloody gashes were on his shoulder and two cuts marked his cheek and forehead, but most of his injuries looked hours old and had begun to clot with dark blood.

Dorian didn't look much better. Dorian's immaculate and buckled coat was bloodied and dirtied. While Samahl only had rage in his eyes for the Magister, Dorian looked at his mentor with anguish and horror. Despite the anguish in his eyes, he smirked. And despite whatever adventure he'd just been through, Dorian's mustache still looked flawless. Some guys just had all the luck. "You'll have to do better than that," Dorian said.

Devastated and overwhelmed, Alexius fell to his knees on the stone floor.

"Put aside all claim to Redcliffe," Samahl said. Bull could hear the creak of the leather of Samahl's glove as Samahl's hand tightened around his staff. "and we'll let you live."

"You won," Alexius said, defeated. "There is no point in extending this charade." He looked up at his son with grief. "Felix," he whispered.

Bull turned away and surveyed the throne room. The Inquisition assassins nodded to him from their positions behind the Vints they just killed. "Sir," one of them whispered.

Bull walked over to her. "What?"

"There is a force of soldiers approaching . . . with . . . I think she's Queen Anora."

"How can you tell?"

Bull could see the scout's face blush a little. "Well, um, I've heard her talk in public every chance I get."

It seemed the scout had herself a little crush. Bull chuckled. "Good on you," he said.

The Ferelden soldiers marched into the Throne room with all the noise and pomp and circumstance of a parade as they escorted Queen Anora of Ferelden into the throne room. The scouts had their orders to run a full security sweep of the castle, but the Ferelden soldiers immediately cut them off. "This Castle is now under the command of Queen Anora," the soldier by the throne room door said stiffly. "You all will need to leave."

Bull walked over to the soldier and put on an easy smile. "You all came here just in time," he said conversationally. "It's good to see the Queen here." Bull nodded his head to the dead Vints. "There could be more of those bastards here. I know your forces are strong, but ours are sneaky. Let's work together. I think we both want the same thing."

The soldier looked skeptical. "We want to keep her safe," said the enamored inquisition scout by Bull's side. Bull could practically see stars of love dancing in her eyes.

The Fereldan soldier sighed. "Yes. Fine. We'll let them . . . do whatever they do to check this place."

Bull grinned and clapped his hand on the Ferelden soldier's shoulder. Then he walked back towards the heated conversation Queen Anora was having with Grand Enchanter Fiona. "Your Majesty," the Grand Enchanter pleaded, "let me assure you, we never intended any of this—"

"Your intentions ceased to matter when my people were threatened. I am rescinding my offer of sanctuary. You and your followers will leave Ferelden at once."

The Grand Enchanter's eyes widened. For a moment, she didn't look like she knew what to say. "But . . . we have hundreds who need our protection. Where will we go?"

Samahl looked back and forth between the Queen of Ferelden and the Grand Enchanter. "I should point out that we did come here for mages to close the Breach," Samahl said.

The reminder of the bigger threat made both the Queen and the Enchanter turn to Samahl with surprise. Queen Anora looked at him suspiciously, as though trying to figure out what authority he had to interrupt her conversation so boldly. "Who are you?" she asked imperiously.

Samahl performed a low graceful bow to her. "Samahl Lavellan from the Inquisition, Your Majesty. First of Clan Lavellan in the Free Marches."

The Queen's eyes narrowed. "The Herald of Andraste?" the Queen said.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Fiona looked at Samahl hesitantly as he straightened from his bow. "And what are the terms of this arrangement?" she asked.

"Hopefully better than what Alexius gave you," said Dorian. Then the Altus frowned and looked curiously at Samahl. "The Inquisition is better than that, yes?"

"After this?" Sera said, her eyes narrowed at the Grand Enchanter. "Stick them up a tower."

At that moment, Samahl looked at Sera. And because Bull was trained for it, he saw the moment where Samahl looked as though he wasn't actually seeing Sera, but something else entirely. Bull could see his hands twitch on his staff, and terror and grief crossed over Samahl's face. And when his eyes snapped to Bull's face, and he caught Bull in a look, that look of grief only magnified and multiplied.

What's going on, Boss? Bull wondered.

The Enchanter sighed. "It seems we have little choice but to accept whatever you offer," she said. It was unspoken that even if it was another tower, she would accept.

Samahl looked back at Fiona. The oddly devastated look in his eyes remained even as he smiled. "We would be honored to have you fight as allies at the Inquisition's side."

Bull released a long breath. The presence of Queen Anora and the Grand Enchanter made this choice official. Apparently, something about what Samahl had just been through made this decision nonnegotiable.

"A generous offer," the Enchanter said, overwhelmed. "But what will the rest of the Inquisition think?"

"The Breach threatens all of Thedas," Samahl said with a nod to the green glow of the breach outside of the windows. "We cannot afford to be divided now. We can't fight it without you. Any chance of success requires your full support."

"Whether you accept this alliance or not," Queen Anora said firmly, "you will leave my kingdom."

"We accept," the Enchanter said quickly. "It would be madness not to. I will gather my people and ready them for the journey to Haven. The Breach will be closed. You will not regret giving us this chance."

She bowed to Queen Anora, and then bowed to Samahl. The Herald took one alarmed step away from her.

"Shite," Sera cursed under her breath, and Bull brought his attention back to Sera and the plodding lines of rebel mages on the road. "It's 'cause he's Dalish, innit? Dalish just—I don't know. No Circles, yeah? They just have mages wherever and it doesn't matter. All these mages, no Circles. Some of them'll be demons, right?"

Absolutely, Bull thought, but he kept it to himself. There was no sense in making Sera panic. "We've got mages of our own," he reminded her. "And templars. Cullen will keep an eye on them."

Sera shook her head furiously. "Not enough Templars. Not enough of 'em. Shite, we need more. Why'd Sammy do this?"

"He has his reasons," Bull said calmly.

Sera side-eyed Bull. "You're jus' saying that. You don't like it either. Don't you people all . . . leash your mages?" Sera looked uncomfortable saying it. Despite her fear of magic, she didn't seem to like the idea of mages living in chains.

If Bull had any opinion about the Saarebas back home in Par Vollen, it was that Saarebas were to be both respected and pitied. Their magic developed like all other mages. They had all been training to be something when all of the sudden their magic manifested.

Bull had a healthy fear of magic, but most Qunari were terrified of the Saarebas themselves. A Saarebas abomination was more dangerous than any other mage. All the danger of a normal mage was multiplied by a hundred when a Saarebas became possessed. The demons who made pacts with Saarebas were especially volatile, and often the possessed and the demon died, their bloody lips torn open by the threads and lip rings that had sewn them shut, while roaring and raging about injustice and persecution.

Bull's first experience with a Saarebas had not been in battle. It had been, of all places, at a beach while Bull was free for a day because of a concussion during training and an order to take it easy and not do anything strenuous. He'd been leisurely eating fruit and jerky and a Saarebas and her Arvaarad retainer had been walking by the beach, where they both stopped to watch a flock of violet flamingos skimming their beaks through the water to eat violet shrimp. The sight of a Saarebas and her Arvaarad doing something so normal had bothered Bull more than the terrible stories he'd heard of Saarebas burning down the world around them.

The Tal-Vashoth treated their mages differently. They were free to do as they pleased, to devastating effect. Did you want to steal all the food from a town? Hire a Tal-Vashoth mage mercenary. Need to convince someone to marry you? Hire a Tal-Vashoth mage mercenary. Did you want to summon a demon? Hire a Tal-Vashoth mage mercenary. No task was too morally bankrupt for them to complete. Bull had seen enough of it back in Seheron to know that for certain.

Then the Vints. They worshiped mages. If you weren't a mage, you were dirt. Krem once explained to Bull that in Tevinter society, mage families specifically married their children to other mages in an attempt to create amazingly powerful children cursed with magic. To knowingly put your children in danger by purposely making them be born mages was a cruelty.

For a long time, the Saarebas, Tal-Vashoth mages, and the Vints were all he knew of mages. Then he stepped out of Qunari lands and ended up in Orlais. He joined the Fisher's Bleeders. He met mages from the Circle and mages among the ranks of Wardens. He started up the Chargers. He met Dalish and, despite his fear, took her in, because she needed someone to call home after her clan gave her up because she was a mage. It wasn't her fault what she was. He'd met many people over the years who were gifted with magic. He'd seen abominations, both hostile and peaceful. In the end, his opinion was still firm: If you decide to have a large group of mages together, you needed something, whether it was a Templar, an Arvaarad, or even some supervisor, to make sure they didn't get into trouble.

The Inquisition, the rebel mages, and their new Tevinter prisoners camped out in the Hinterlands that night. Bull wrote a lengthy report to the Ben-Hassrath about the new developments, about Magister Alexius's failed attempt at fucking time magic, and then wrote about the rebel mages.

Bull's fear that the mages might not be carefully supervised was short lived. Samahl spent perhaps ten minutes in one of the Inquisition medical tents before he strode out of it, his new scars closed up, and made his rounds to the master mages and the enchanters to speak about how to best serve and protect the mages under their care. As a First of his clan and a mage of the Dalish rather than the Circle, he had unique knowledge about keeping mages safe from abominations without templars, and he was a much more welcome presence to the Rebels than a mage from a circle would have been. Samahl's efforts seemed to settle not only the mages' restlessness, but everyone else's too. Samahl even stopped to speak with Sera who, gradually, warmed back up to him despite her reservations about the mages.

Samahl was still avoiding Bull, and before Bull could even speak to him, Samahl finally stepped into his tent to sleep while Bull sat beside the fire and sharpened his axe. It was so unlike Samahl to not ask Bull about his opinion on a decision he had made that Bull knew without a doubt that something was wrong and Samahl needed time to process it. Bull would wait him out. Samahl would talk to him eventually. He was good like that.

Now that Samahl was off his mind, it was Bull's turn for his dark thoughts to plague him. An army of demons? That is what Dorian and Samahl had said waited for them somewhere in the future. How Dorian and Samahl knew, he wasn't certain.

Just when Bull finished tending to his axe, he heard a muffled shout from Samahl's tent. Bull tensed. He heard Samahl gasp and heard a rustle of blankets. "Boss?" Bull called. His call was met by silence. "Samahl," he said instead.

After a pause, Samahl's falsely casual voice called, "What is it?"

"How you doing?" Bull asked.

There was a quiet sigh. "I've been better. I can't sleep."

Bull smiled. "Same here," Bull said. "All this talk of 'army made of demons' is making me twitchy."

There was some shuffling around in the tent and Samahl stepped out of it dressed warmly in his very simple and tantalizingly thin blue elven robe. The firelight shined on the elf's sleep tangled hair. His eyes were outlined by circles of exhaustion, but the new scars on his face were healing. Bull rummaged into his pack. "I've got something that might help," he said.

"It's not Golden Scythe, is it?" Samahl muttered hopefully.

Bull laughed. "You're not anywhere close to the mood you need to be in to have that. No. I've got sleepy tea. Doesn't actually make you sleepy. It just calms you down. It's from Par Vollen."

Samahl smiled and looked up at Bull. It was the first time since Redcliffe that he made eye contact without looking like he was in pain. "You drink sleepy tea?" Samahl asked softly.

"Yup. Since I was a kid. This kept me up at night a lot," Bull said, pointing at his own noggin with his thumb. Samahl looked up at Bull's head and viscerally shuddered and looked away. Bull frowned. He's back to that look again, he thought. It's because of me. What is it? "I'll make the tea for you," Bull murmured. "You just relax."

Samahl nodded silently and sat down on one of the Inquisition camp chairs by the fire.

Bull boiled water. He knew Samahl could have helped with that, but Bull didn't want him to use any magic. He looked scored out, exhausted, and horrified. He needed rest. Bull steeped the tea and served it to Samahl, who drank silently and stared, deep in dark thoughts, into the flames of the campfire. Bull served himself some tea, took a sip, and then looked at Samahl. "I have something very important to say to you," Bull said gravely.

Samahl stared up at Bull over the rim of his steaming cup of tea. "What is it?" he asked in concern.

Bull managed to keep his serious expression for another second or two before he smiled. "That robe looks fantastic on you."

Samahl gawked and then grinned. "Thanks," Samahl said. "I always thought your striped trousers were sexy as well."

"Stripes are all the rage back in Par Vollen," Bull said with a raise of his eyebrows.

"Like sleepy tea?"

"They're certainly on level with sleepy tea."

"You said the tea is from Par Vollen?" Samahl asked curiously. "When did you even have a chance to get some?"

Bull laughed. "I suppose the benefit of finally being an important informant for the Ben-Hassrath is that the same people who I give my reports to give me things from Par Vollen too. I requested sleepy tea. And horn balm." Bull frowned. "The balm is late though."

Samahl sipped some of the tea. "I'd like to know more about your work with the Ben-Hassrath," he said.

Bull smiled. The Herald was going for intellectual distraction from his worries. Bull would give it to him. "Ben-Hassrath is actually a general term. You've got the secret police who investigate problems inside our territory. You've got the reeducators who take people with problems and . . . fix their minds . . . or make them disappear." Samahl's eyes widened with silent horror. "And then you've got the spies."

Samahl studied Bull curiously. "None of those sound exactly like you."

Bull looked at the fire. "Yeah. I was a special case," Bull said quietly. "They sent me to Seheron because they needed someone who could fight and hunt down problems. That whole island was a sack of cats. Incursions from Tevinter, Tal-Vashoth, native rebels fighting both sides. And, in the middle, me, trying to wrangle the rebels and restore order."

Samahl grimaced. "I can't imagine that was easy."

"Nope. I hunted down a lot of rebels. Lost a lot of friends to the Vints, or the Fog Warriors, or the Tal-Vashoth. One day I woke up and couldn't think of a damned reason to keep doing my job. Turned myself into the reeducators." Bull frowned at the fire. He hadn't meant to say that. Any of it. It was something about Samahl. Something about seeing Samahl look so tired and ravaged by whatever horror he had witnessed, and it had encouraged Bull to open his mouth and just talk about himself. But when he looked at Samahl's open and sympathetic expression, Bull reminded himself that he was just doing his job: Get close to the people in charge of the Inquisition. If Bull had to make himself vulnerable to make Samahl trust him more, Bull could fall back on the fact that, no matter what, he was just following orders.

"You'd heard what educators did to their prisoners," Samahl said incredulously.

"Yes, I had," Bull said. "I wanted them to fix me like they fixed them. The Ben-Hassrath ordered me to go to Orlais, ostensibly as a Tal-Vashoth, to work under cover. That's how I ended up here."

Samahl smiled. "I'm glad you're here, Bull." Samahl said. Somehow, the statement seemed to hold more weight than it should have.

"Me too," Bull said. And he meant it, despite the hole in the sky and all the failures he had left behind him in Qunari territory.

"If you ever need to talk more about this, let me know."

Bull smiled fondly. "Nah. It was a long time ago. Thanks, though."

"I haven't exactly told you yet what happened at Redcliffe," Samahl said.

Bull grunted in protest. "I change my mind. Let's keep talking about my troubled past and drink more tea," Bull muttered and Samahl laughed. "I don't want to talk about demons right now." I don't think you're ready to talk about this yet, Bull thought.

Samahl grinned. "I wasn't going to talk about demons. I was going to talk about time magic and the Fade."

Bull groaned dramatically. "Time magic and the Fade all come out of the same ass-load of chaos the demons came out of. No." Samahl snickered quietly. Bull couldn't suppress a smirk of success. No matter how stressed the Herald was, Bull had still managed to make him laugh a little. "All right," Bull muttered. "Fire away, Boss." He took a sip of his tea.

Samahl rubbed a hand over his face to compose himself and the laughter in his features was replaced by gravity. "Alexius's plan was to make it so I never existed. He failed when Dorian intervened and we were accidentally sent a year ahead in time." Samahl smiled bitterly. "But Alexius was finally successful with time magic, though he is not aware of it. It's why we know about the demon army and how the Venatori are planning an assassination attempt on Empress Celine."

Bull frowned. Damn. I need to rewrite the report. Successful time magic? What. The. Fuck? "So . . . that Tevinter guy sent you into the future?" Bull asked incredulously. When Samahl nodded, Bull groaned, shaking his head.

Samahl smirked, his exhausted blue eyes dancing. "If you're worried about magic, I can protect you."

"My blade pretty much protects me," Bull said.

Samahl grinned. "Perhaps I can do things your blade can't," he murmured suggestively.

"I don't know," Bull said doubtfully. "It has blood grooves. Well, technically it's the fuller, but 'blood grooves' sounds so much more violent." Bull looked over at the rows of tents of the rebel mages. "Anyway, I hope our new friends have what it takes to close the breech. Damn thing gives me a headache just looking at it."

Samahl's jaw clenched. "We will," he said with determination. "We'll close it successfully this time. I've seen what will happen to the world if we fail." He looked up at Bull and his face paled again. Samahl pointedly looked away from him.

Bull suddenly understood why Samahl was avoiding eye contact. "Fuck, you saw me in the future?" he guessed. Samahl looked up at him sharply. "You did, didn't you? You haven't been able to look me in the eye much since you came back. What happened?"

"You died to send me back here," Samahl said heatedly, his eyes hard as they stared at the Breach. The green glow of it shined in his eyes. "You, and Sera, Leliana. Bull, you told me . . . you asked me to give you . . ." Samahl shook his head in despair. "Shit," he muttered.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that chills raced up and down absolutely everywhere on Bull's skin, Bull could not resist joking, "That doesn't sound like me. I know sometimes it's not always avoidable, but shit is a hard limit for me, Boss. Sorry."

Surprised laughter exploded from Samahl. For a minute, it didn't seem like he could stop laughing. The Herald covered his mouth with a hand to hold in the stressed laughter. "Sorry," he muttered.

Bull touched Samahl's wrist lightly. Samahl tensed. "You told me if I wanted to talk, I could talk to you. Same goes for you, Boss. If you need to talk, shout, or hit something, I'm your man."

Samahl pulled his hand away from his mouth and took a deep breath, "Thanks, Bull," he said sincerely, and gave Bull's hand a squeeze. Samahl stared down at Bull's giant pale grey hand in surprise. "I don't know why I never noticed," Samahl said.

"What?" Bull asked.

"No. I should have noticed and I'm embarrassed that I didn't."

"Noticed what?"

"You're missing the ends of two of your fingers."

Bull looked down at his left hand. "Lost them in a bad fight in Seheron," Bull said. Along with my sanity and Vasaad, his thoughts silently added. "Was lucky I didn't lose the bigger ones, or holding the axe would be tricky," he added with a chin nod to his axe. Then Bull grinned mischievously. "One time when I thought I might lose the arm, you know what I was going to do?"

"What?" Samahl asked. They were still holding hands.

"Cannon arm."

Samahl blinked. "Cannon arm?"

"Yup. Big ol' cannon prosthetic for an arm. And I'd get other prosthetics so I could accessorize. Like a fan hand."

"A fan?"

"Par Vollen gets hot. And I'd have gotten another hand for bedtime, if you know what I mean."

Samahl laughed and blushed. "I don't think you need to get rid of your arm to purchase one of those," Samahl said.

"True. But it'd be more fun if that was my hand. If someone ever called out, 'I need a hand!' I would give them the bedtime hand every. Single. Time.'"

They laughed and Samahl gave Bull's hand another squeeze and let go of his hand. They finished their tea in companionable silence. "Do you still have hot water left?" Samahl asked. "I can wash the cup."

"Don't you dare. Give that to me," Bull scolded and took the cup. "You just got punted into the future. No dishwashing for you. Go sleep."

With one more warm look at Bull, Samahl walked back to his tent. "Good night, Bull," Samahl said.

"'Night, Boss," Bull called back. He listened to Samahl settle back down in the tent. Bull pulled his report back out of his satchel and began to add information about successful time magic. Then he looked up to glower at the Breach. "Fucking demon crap," Bull muttered.

Bull heard Samahl snort inelegantly with laughter from inside the tent.