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As they made their way through the dusty rooms at the bottom of the tower, Varric couldn't help thinking of the Hanged Man, and ale, and the pleasant scratch of his pen on paper. Anything to avoid thinking of Gerav, lying here in the middle of this Maker-forsaken place, victim of some crazy delusion.
"Hawke," he said abruply.
"Yes, Varric." There was a softness in her tone that he didn't like at all. He didn't want her sympathy. He didn't want her feeling badly for him.
"I hope you told Bodahn where you were going. If we never come back, maybe someone will send a search party out for their Champion."
Her lips tightened, as he had intended them to. She hated being called Champion. "Maybe everyone in Kirkwall will forget that they ever dreamed such a person into existence," she said sharply. "Besides, if I'd told Bodahn where we were going, Cullen would have had it out of him ten minutes after we left."
"You think he'd have waited that long? I'm surprised you got Sunshine out of Kirkwall at all."
"Me, too."
In an open room, they ran into another dwarf. This one was in some impressive armor, very shiny and fancy. Worth quite a bit. And he had a bronto with him. Varric took a step to the side. He had no desire to face a charging bronto head-on. That was what Hawke, and her gigantic sword, was for.
"Hawke." The dwarf looked her over, assessing how much of a challenge she would be in a fight. To judge from the sourness of his expression, he'd got it about right. "They told me you were going to be trouble."
"I do like to live up to my reputation."
The dwarf ignored her, looking over her shoulder at Sunshine. "And you brought the whole family. How generous. And convenient. I swore to Corypheus we'd bring him Malcolm Hawke's blood. One way or the other … What Corypheus wants, Corypheus gets."
"Lucky Corypheus. However, I happen to like my blood right where it is, thanks."
Sunshine came to stand next to her sister. "What does this have to do with our father?"
"The master wants you. I don't ask why. Corypheus, we have done what you command. Your sacrifice is here! You will see the surface once more."
"You won't," Hawke snapped. "He's useless. Let's kill him."
"You can try."
The resulting battle—including a phalanx of dwarven archers and several charges by the bronto—was exhausting, but ended as Varric had expected. Whatever the purpose was of drinking darkspawn blood or whatever Corypheus had done to these dwarves, it hadn't made them any smarter.
When the mouthy lead dwarf was dead, Hawke knelt to loot the body, as usual. Something was different about this one, though. Something was … calling to her, in a voice she knew as if from somewhere long ago. With some difficulty, she rolled him over, revealing his sword.
Varric looked over her shoulder. "That thing? It looks like a piece of junk."
"It's mine," Hawke whispered, picking it up reverently. She could feel the hum of it all up her arms and into her body.
"Hawke?"
"I'm … I'm fine." She slung the sword on her back. Something told her to keep it with her. "This is going to take me to Corypheus."
Bethany frowned. "How do you know?"
"I just … do."
She followed the hum of the strange sword down a set of stone steps. Where the warren of rooms they had already passed through were largely of wood, and looked fairly recent, down here everything was stone and marble, and it looked like it had been here a long, long time.
"This looks like dwarven handiwork," Anders said, studying the walls.
"And that looks like magic." Bethany was looking behind them, at a barrier that had formed across the doorway, glowing forbiddingly.
"No way back," Varric said grimly.
"The only way out is to keep going." The sword had told her that, anyway. Hawke wasn't surprised. "Fine with me. I wasn't leaving until we found Corypheus anyway. Let's go."
She led the way through a door into the central core of the tower. It was vast, built of heavy blocks of stone. And across the way …
"Maker's blood," Anders snapped. "Darkspawn. Just what we needed."
"Darkspawn? Shit. This isn't even the Deep Roads!" Varric shook his head. "And they wonder why I prefer the surface."
"Why did we agree to do this again?"
"Because if I left you in Kirkwall, you were going to get yourself killed."
Anders frowned at Hawke. "I think I'd rather have been killed by Templars, thanks. I've had all the darkspawn I can stomach for one lifetime."
"Apparently not."
"Now, Blondie," Varric said, "this isn't so bad. Just think, you could be losing more coin to the elf in a game of Wicked Grace."
Anders groaned. "At this rate, I'll still be paying him back when I'm dead."
"Shh!" Hawke could feel something ahead. It called to her. Or the sword. She wasn't sure how much difference there was at this point.
In the next room, they found a demon held in stasis in a cell. Three glowing orbs were arranged in front of the cell, and from them, Hawke could hear a voice emanating. "Be bound here for eternity. Hunger stilled. Rage smothered. Desire dampened. Pride crushed. In the name of the Maker, so let it be."
"Father," she whispered.
"What?" Bethany asked, and Hawke realized none of the others had heard the voice.
"Nothing. Let's take down this demon."
"How do we get it out of there?" Varric asked.
"With this." She pointed the sword at each of the orbs in turn, and it absorbed the energy. How she had known that would work, she couldn't have said, but it did. The demon summoned others to assist it, but Hawke's team made short work of all of them.
The voice that followed when the demon was dead was audible to all of them. "I can do nothing about the Wardens' use of demons in this horrid place."
"Father!" Bethany exclaimed.
"But I will have no one say any magic of mine ever released one into the world."
"How is this possible?" Hawke asked. Hearing her father's voice … Maker, she had missed him. From the tears filling Bethany's eyes, she could see her sister felt the same. They clung to each other. "We have to find out what happened here."
"Yes." Bethany nodded. "I'm glad we're together, sister."
"So am I."