Sixteen
Crestwood 9:41 Dragon
Cassius looked around at the ring of steel-pointed arrows reflecting the moonlight.
There were at least two dozen and those were just the ones he could see. They had successfully ringed the campsite without being detected. The fog that had settled in overnight had concerned Cassius, and he had ordered his men to bunk down without a fire. They had grumbled about the southern cold, but obeyed.
It hadn't kept them hidden.
The Inquisition commander stepped forward with his sword sheathed but the round shield in his other arm half-raised, just in case.
"You're surrounded," he said in a clean accent that suggested he wasn't Fereldan, or at least not by birth. The flaming eye of the Inquisition was clearly, proudly displayed across his breastplate. "Surrender your men and there won't be any need for bloodshed tonight."
Marinus growled at his side. The young man was nearly frothing after being roused awake by Cassius and seeing the enemy had managed to fall upon them. He held his staff tightly down at his left side, his right hand clenched into a fist.
Cassius should have posted more of a watch. But the long march into the Bannorn had been taking its toll on his unit. The men were hungry and tired and cold. He had not wanted to pillage the countryside for supplies but had been left with little choice. The Venatori had no supply line this deep into enemy territory and they had been left to their own devices.
On this particular night, they had found a fairly out-of-the-way outcropping of rocks and the partial moon combined with the fog had given him a false sense of security. This area was remote. No one was likely to stumble on their campsite in the dark by accident.
What was apparent now was that the Inquisition hadn't just luckily stumbled upon their camp. They must have been tracking the Venatori for at least a day, probably longer. He had been dispatched from Redcliffe with enough hardy fighters, but little in the way of scouts or woodsmen.
This terrain was totally foreign and Fereldan maps of its interior, with its crosshatched fabric of farms and remote villages, were irresponsibly vague. In Tevinter, for even little coin, a traveler could purchase an exceptionally detailed map with even minor roads on it. In Ferelden, their cartographers were content to just write "The Bannorn" over the empty middle and be satisfied with it. Perhaps it was lingering paranoia after spending time under Orlesian occupation, to purposefully leave anyone who dared to wander off the main roads hopelessly lost.
Once Magister Alexius had secured a base of operations in Redcliffe, he wanted to branch out into Ferelden as quickly as possible. If he had tried to play turtle, they might hold out for a time, but they didn't have the manpower or logistical backup to hold out in any sort of prolonged siege if the Fereldans had decided they didn't care for their new neighbors. The castle could withstand a direct assault, but once inside, there was no way out if the Inquisition was content to camp at the end of the causeway and wait for them to starve.
Magister Alexius had handed out orders to march and Cassius obeyed. Magister Arrentius had fully placed his trust in Gereon, enough so to send both his adopted son and his heir, so Cassius extended that same level of trust as they had gone south. Alexius was cautious but wise. He had led them well and had managed to bring the rebel mages to heel. How, exactly, wasn't clear, only that he had.
But they didn't have the resources, the intelligence, or the soldiers to successfully push far beyond Redcliffe. Still, Cassius had pressed them forward to fulfill their orders – find and kill the so-called Herald of Andraste, and crush any Inquisition forces they might come across.
They had found none, until now.
"Do I have your word that my men will not be harmed?" Cassius asked their commander.
"Traitor!" Marinus seethed.
"Quiet," he bit back over his shoulder to Magister Arrentius' young heir.
The commander regarded Marinus for a moment, then went back to ignoring him and returned his attention to Cassius. "As long as your men cooperate," he said, not bothering to look back at the young lord but clearly directing it at him, "I guarantee your safety."
"Don't do it, Cassius, you Praeteri coward!" Marinus shouted, but quieted at the sound of bowstrings being stretched even farther as the soldier nearest to him took a step forward, thrusting his arrow much closer to the boy's face. The young lord got the message.
There was little judgment to make. If they attempted to fight, most, if not all of them would be killed. The camp was surrounded. Each archer's bow was trained at a slightly different angle, each man eyeing his own target. Before they raised the first blade or before he would be able to conjure his first spell, the archers would skewer them.
Worst of all, Marinus would almost certainly be killed. None of Magister Arrentius' daughters possessed the gift and none would be able to rise to his seat in the Magisterium. Marinus was already a non-ideal successor to the seat, a placeholder on the hope that Flavius might live long enough to see a grandchild blessed with magic. Even if he died before they were of age to fully inherit, the seat could be placed in the stewardship of a trustee to preserve it until he or she was ready. It would keep the chair within Flavius' line and keep his daughters secure for their lives.
Agreeing to name Marinus as next-in-line had been a careful negotiation bartered between Flavius and his younger brother, who arguably had the strongest claim but who Flavius despised more than anyone. If Marinus died, there would almost certainly be bloodshed in Asariel. His younger brother did not have the means to actually overthrow Flavius, but, if provoked, he could do enough damage to destroy them both.
If Cassius surrendered, there was no ultimate guarantee of their safety beyond their commander's word, but it provided chances for life against the prospect of almost certain death.
Cassius reached slowly to his back and retrieved his staff, extending it to the Inquisition commander.
"I, Cassius Terro, hereby surrender my men, and place ourselves in your custody," he said, loudly enough that his soldiers would hear him.
The Inquisition commander glanced back to his troops, who offered short nods back in his direction, no doubt signaling that there were no threats from any of the Venatori soldiers.
He accepted Cassius' staff and passed it back to another soldier who disappeared into the fog with it.
"Are there any other mages besides you and the boy?" the commander asked.
"No," Cassius answered.
"I don't want any funny business out of either of you," the commander said as his soldiers produced ropes and roused the Venatori soldiers to their feet. "I see any attempt to cast any type of spell and my men won't hesitate to put you down. Hands."
Cassius placed his wrists together and the commander quickly wrapped the rope and knotted it tightly. "Twenty men, plus you two mages?"
That convinced Cassius that the Inquisition had been tracking them for much longer than a single day. It had been long enough to get a full and accurate count of his forces before pouncing. "Yes."
"Your soldiers will be taken to a detention camp at Kinloch Hold," the commander continued. "You two mages will be transported to the Inquisition fortress at Skyhold for judgment."
"And what then?" Cassius asked.
"Above my pay grade," was the quick answer. "Any other Venatori prowling around these parts I should know about?"
Cassius shook his head. Honesty would be the best policy from here on out to guarantee their safety, up to a point. If it came to betraying Magister Alexius or Magister Arrentius or death, honor and duty demanded he choose the latter.
"I'd like to believe that," the commander said. "I don't know what you 'Vints are after this far out, but I'm looking forward to cleaning up the rest of your kind and finally being able to get a good night's rest."
Marinus' hands were bound and one of the Inquisition soldiers shoved him over until he collided into Cassius' side. Marinus spit at the man as he squirmed, struggling against the bindings.
"Drink piss you pathetic dog lord," Marinus hissed.
"Tell your boy to mind his mouth before we bind that, too," the commander said. "Or before someone takes offense and decides to break his teeth."
Cassius stepped between the two men with his back turned to the Inquisition commander and faced Marinus, speaking low and grim. "For your own good. Shut. Up."
Marinus snarled but ultimately backed down, perhaps wanting to keep his teeth in his mouth instead of scattered somewhere in Ferelden when a soldier put a mailed fist through them. Or perhaps the idiot child wasn't so dumb as to realize the Inquisition soldiers didn't have to take him to Skyhold alive. No doubt it would be much less work just to put a sword through their backs and dump them in the woods for the wolves.
"Traitor," he let slip again just as Cassius was about to turn back around.
Were he not Magister Arrentius' heir, Cassius might have encouraged the soldiers to dispose of him.
"Nothing wrong with knowing when you're beat," the commander offered by way of apology with a clap on Cassius' shoulder as if they were old friends breaking from the table after a night of cards and not opponents at war.
"Let's get out of here," the commander shouted to his men with a loud whistle as he spun his finger in the air. "Too damn cold out here tonight for this shit."
Ambushed. Caught. Defeated. Tied. Bound for judgment.
As the commander stepped aside and motioned for them to move, Cassius walked, on his way toward his fate.
Minrathous 9:42
The city guard had the area cordoned off two blocks away and there was no way to get closer.
No way, at street level, at least.
Cassius ducked inside the apartment building, ignoring the men and women sitting out in the hall, fanning themselves in an effort to stay cool on what was an unconscionably warm and humid night. Cassius kept his hands in his pockets and wrapped around his valuables as he passed with his head down, his hood drawn up over his head. He slipped up the stairs until he reached the top and pushed the door to the roof open.
There were sun-scorched men sitting around drinking from bottles that looked black in the dim of night, passing them back and forth to each other as they quietly conversed and glanced sidelong as the white-jacketed mage walked by. In the southeast corner, there was a young woman with her arms stretched out clutching the parapet with a young man wrapped in between her legs and under her pushed-up skirt, mating like stray dogs with little care of the other people just a few feet away.
Cassius stepped up onto the low wall and stretched his gait across to the other building just a few feet away. There was a mixed group of Tevinters, Antivans and Rivaini all sitting together at a long table covered in food so draped in spice that Cassius could feel tingling in his sinuses even as he walked past at a distance. The table was a cacophony of language, men and women cross-talking in three different tongues as well as some type of bastard dialect of the sea that all of them seemed to understand as they slipped in and out of words even mid-sentences. Their short, sharp chatter evoked the image of a filthy slave trader vessel cutting water under moonlight to avoid the imperial navy.
An old, fat woman with sagging breasts nearly to her waist and a smile wide and bereft of most of her teeth offered him a plate of orange-colored rice slathered in a brown sauce and peppers as he passed, which he kindly declined while thanking her for her hospitality.
He stepped across to the next building, which was conspicuously empty. As his foot plunged down through a soggy wooden board, he noticed that no one was up top because there was little top left on this particular building. More than half of the roof had collapsed in, although he could see candle light underneath and wisps of smoke trailing up that confirmed that, yes, there were people living in there. He wondered for a moment what they did when it rained as he stepped over to the stone parapet and walked foot over foot in a straight line like a circus acrobat, sticking to the solid edge of the building so as not to plunge into someone's slovenly domicile.
He looked across the street to the buildings on the other side. It was too far to jump across the street – for him at least, he wasn't so sure a spry thief or a well-trained Crow couldn't make the leap with a running start – so he instead pulled his staff from his back and opened himself to the Fade, drawing mana.
He focused on the building across the street and gripped his staff tightly, stepping out over open air as he cast the spell, a burst of cold at his back as the spell thrust him forward over the expanse until his feet fell gently upon the roof on the other side. The winter spell came with the bonus of offering a slight chill, a welcome side effect on a night as sticky as tonight.
Cassius continued down the block, stepping from rooftop to rooftop in the crammed-together residential district until he came to the corner of the building overlooking the intersecting avenues. The guards were standing around, blocking off the streets, looking out for anyone trying to break the perimeter. But none of them bothered to glance up.
In the middle of the intersection there was a body lying face down in a pool of blood that ran in between the street stones to the east, following the slight downward slope of the lane toward the sea.
Cassius recognized the corpse.
"Cerak The Terrible," he confirmed to himself as the body lay face up toward the sky. Underneath his wide eyes and frozen mouth was a curving red gash across the entirety of his throat, deep enough that the head tilted back slightly on the stone as the slashed muscles of the neck failed to counterbalancing tension to the weight of the skull. The wide and gruesome cut accounted for the sizable pool of blood that had flooded the block. Cerak's sword was still tucked into its sheath. Whoever killed him, he never saw it coming.
Cassius was too high up to hear what the guardsmen on the street below were saying. He wondered whether they knew how valuable the corpse on the road was. If they did, any one of them could take credit for the murder and claim a hefty bounty. No doubt they only saw a dead mercenary, perhaps trying to puzzle together where he had been drinking earlier in the night so as to inquire as to whether anyone there saw which man he had riled enough to follow him to the street and cut his throat.
Cassius stepped back from the corner and back out of sight. He had seen what he needed to see.
People were murdered in the poor parts of the city every day. Drunkards carrying swords tended to end up dead a little more often than regular folk.
And yet, Cassius couldn't merely just chalk the death up to coincidence as he headed back toward the city center and the capitol.
He slid into the chair, where a steaming cup of black coffee was already waiting.
The white pieces of the chess board sat in front of him, and Cassius thrust a pawn forward into the center of the board.
On the other side, behind the two rows of black pieces, Plinius Paverii sipped his cup without looking up. He placed the coffee down on the saucer and moved his first pawn in response before speaking.
"Well?" he said, speaking quietly and glancing up from the board at the other patrons.
The soft yellow light that spilled onto the street came from magic-powered lamps hanging under the shingled awning that extended out from the building, overhanging the street-side tables. The coffee house was an unusual place considering that coffees were scorned by most of the Tevinter nobility, viewed as savage and barbarian, more suited to coal-skinned Rivaini workers than magisters and household lords. And yet, the establishment was a gathering place for intellectuals who patronized it simply to subvert the cultural norm and to sit and converse over politics while engaging in gentlemanly pursuits like chess or games of cards at stakes that would make poor gamblers drool, but was pittance to the higher classes that gathered there.
The coffee house was open to the air, so that anyone passing by could always see who was, or wasn't, sitting inside. Cassius was passingly aware of a circuit of very skilled chess players who rotated from shop to shop and who were not ashamed to hustle unlearned and boastful players out of their wallets.
It was not the kind of place Magister Arrentius frequented ever. He preferred his discussions, both personal and for business, to occur behind closed doors with a glass or three of wine. Flavius eschewed gambling as a matter of principle and the conservative upbringing of his youth. The meeting place had been decided by Plinius, a peculiar choice of location for a peculiar young man.
"Dead," Cassius said, moving another piece on his side of the board, trying to remember the sequence of opening moves. He was a poor chess player, with an understanding of the basic fundamentals of the game and enough knowledge to play a friendly match if challenged, but amateur enough that almost all of his games against anyone passingly adept ended in defeat. "Yours?"
"Missing," Plinius said. "Whether dead or merely fled the city, I can't tell. Regardless, not on the road to Calix territory as contracted."
Word of the murder had hit the ears of Magister Ceratori – how wasn't exactly clear, only that it had – and had led to Cassius being roused and dragged to a back corridor of the Magisterium where Cressida was already waiting with other members of their Decade. Plinius, Lysander and Calix were there. Jaxxon had been summoned, but had driven off the messenger because he was, allegedly, in a bath. Magister Ceratori was annoyed and made a comment that she might have to drown the fool in his gilded tub.
She had dispatched them to check on their recent contacts, fearing a breach. Plinius had decided they would all meet at the coffee house and report when they were done.
The two men exchanged a few moves across the board in silence. Cassius picked up his cup of coffee and sipped at it, trying to mask how he didn't care for its unapologetic bitterness. Plinius seemed not bothered at all, lifting the cup in between moves and sipping with no discomfort.
Cassius turned his head and caught sight of the approaching Lysander Vespasian, who ambled up and took a seat at the side of the board. Plinius raised his hand without looking up from the chess board, and a moment later a serving girl came over carefully carrying another saucer and cup of coffee, placing it down at Lysander's side. He looked to the other side of the table, seeking milk or sugar and finding none. He lifted his cup, stopping before his lips.
"Nothing to report," Lysander said, the cup shielding his lips from anyone who might be watching. He sipped and made a face, placing the cup down and pushing it away.
"Shit," Plinius cursed under his breath as he eyed the chess board, passing on an opportunity to capture to instead maintain the tension of the pieces and instead continue to develop his position.
"Yours?" Lysander inquired.
"Dead, as Magister Ceratori had heard," Cassius confirmed. "And missing."
"Shit, indeed," he agreed, folding his hands on the table.
Plinius sipped his coffee again as Cassius scanned the board. Cassius looked over the pieces with a sense of dread. Nothing had happened yet, but he could feel an impending sense that his opponent was a move or two from unleashing an attack that he was certain he would not be able to defend. He somehow got the impression that Plinius was a strong player, well beyond his skill level.
"Magister Porenni will immediately be suspicious," Plinius said, placing his hand to his chin as Cassius made a move and then quickly started his attack, exchanging a wing pawn into the center of the board.
"We haven't heard from Calix yet," Lysander offered optimistically.
"I don't suspect anything will be amiss," Plinius said. "Even if it is, the fact that both of the men Cassius and I contracted today are gone is irrefutable evidence something is amiss. He'll sense a traitor in our midst."
Cassius had reached the same conclusion as Plinius proceeded to slaughter his defenses on the chessboard. He may be lousy at chess, but even he could perceive that the only reasonable conclusion Magister Porenni was likely to reach is that he had been betrayed. He was severe and suspicious to start with and such an occurrence was guaranteed to lead him to clamp down hard. Cassius gulped at the prospect.
"Cassius wouldn't betray us," Lysander offered in his defense. Cassius appreciated it, although it was an overreach. They were acquainted, yes, but they were hardly close. If anything, Cassius feared the quick statement might only raise more suspicion.
"I'm not suggesting he did," Plinius said. "And I hope he, likewise, doesn't suspect me."
"No, of course not," Cassius said, although his mind wandered back to their conversations earlier in the day. Plinius served the Venatori, but he didn't seem like he did so with much enthusiasm. He had expressly said he walked this path so as to not dishonor his family, so why would he do something that, if discovered, would dishonor his family? Then again, he might have motive. After his injury, his father had stripped him of his rightful inheritance by birth.
"Lysander, do you know who we were assigned to contact today?" Plinius asked.
"No. I wasn't told."
"And we weren't told about your contacts," Plinius said. "Magister Porenni has purposefully placed operational distance between us. That greatly narrows the list of suspects if there is a breach of security. Cassius and I will be his prime targets."
Plinius leaned back from the board. Cassius' pieces were already decimated. The game was not over, but was clearly lost. Instead of making his next move, Cassius instead returned to his coffee. The bitterness was bludgeoning, but a distraction from letting his mind wander to what Magister Porenni might do to him.
He hadn't betrayed the Venatori, but declaring his innocence was not proof of anything. For someone as dour as Magister Porenni, trying to claim himself free of wrongdoing was only likely to keep Porenni's hawkish eyes more fixated upon him.
Cassius' mind immediately floated to Albi Danarius. The young man had appeared forthright and trustworthy, but he was an ally of Magister Tilani and not of the Venatori. Cassius had been careful to keep the page segregated from any and all of his business, but he could not be entirely certain that Albi didn't have some other means of conducting espionage to which he was ignorant. The entire arrangement had felt dangerous from the start, even though Cassius had found no overt reason to mistrust the boy.
Certainly Magister Tilani had other agents around the city, although he was not expressly aware of any of them. That felt like an amorphous threat, though, possible but unproven. Anyone who walked the streets of Minrathous knew that anyone could be listening at any time and that trust was not a currency to be traded in flippantly. Cassius could think of no one specifically who might have had access to his orders.
There were few people in the city he was close with. He had dined frequently with Valerie and Lysander, as the man always seemed to find a way to insert himself close to her. Cassius hadn't discussed his work with Vespasian, but he was a fellow Venatori and another member of the Decade, so he was privy to their overall mission and the means by which they hoped to accomplish it, even if Cassius hadn't shared the specifics of his duties with the man.
Magister Ceratori's involvement raised questions. How had she heard about some random murder in the poor quarter and even if she had, why would it be of concern to someone of her station? Furthermore, how did she know that some evening murder might be connected to their plot and warrant further investigation? And why had she only called the young men together tonight, but, as far as Cassius knew, not any of the other magisters?
The only other person who might be reasonably involved was Plinius himself. Cassius felt overmatched by him and the clear, thoughtful and logical way his mind worked. If their chess game was any indication, he had a strong understanding of strategy and a good deal of tactical prescience. Life was not chess, but Plinius was a man who now clearly thrived within his own mind. Cassius had no doubts that he could execute a plot with a reasonable expectation of success.
And yet, there was something inside him that led him to reject it. Maybe it was pity, as he looked at the shroud covering the side of Plinius' face and the empty sleeve of his coat. Although maybe Plin recognized that others might look upon him with pity or disgust and turned it to his advantage, a tool to benefit subterfuge.
Those kinds of calculations made Cassius' head hurt. It reminded him of the way Magister Arrentius would sit in his room late at night, talking to himself, speaking his political arguments out loud so that he could hear them, offer refutation to them, and then craft his strategy accordingly. Maybe Plinius saw the field like Flavius saw it, a tangled web of possibilities but blessed with an innate sense to see through it and find a navigable path.
"We don't have enough information," Cassius said as he returned to the board and moved a piece.
"No," Plinius agreed. "And we've vulnerable because of it."
"Perhaps I can speak to Magister Porenni?" Lysander offered.
"No," Plinius cut before he could speak any further. "I appreciate your offer, but that would likely only make things worse, for both us and you. The best thing you can do is forget about this conversation once you leave this table."
"What should we do?" Cassius asked.
Plinius placed his hand to his chin again and thought for a moment. "I need to find out what happened to our missing man. That will answer some questions. For now, just keep your head down."
Lysander turned in his chair, looking across the lamplit street both left and right. "Where is Calix? He should be back by now."
"Another mystery," Plinius said as he tipped his coffee cup deeply, drinking what was left. He placed the empty cup down on the saucer and moved a piece on the chessboard, then extended his hand to Cassius.
"Mate."
