Dragon Age: Revengeance
ACT I
Chapter 7
I am Lily, myself, alone. There is no one in this cell except me, and I am myself.
I write these words each day. At Aeonar, it's wise to remind yourself of these things. Especially now.
The last inmate the templars brought was a boy, wearing velvet with one sleeve torn off. A noble from Hercinia, the whisper ran, suspected to be an apostate hidden by his family while he practiced blood magic on their servants. The templars locked him in a cell. He ranted and cursed at them, but the rest of us grew quiet, waiting.
Aeonar is a prison designed to let things in. The Veil here is so perilously thin that even I can feel it. The denizens of the Fade gather like monstrous shapes pressing against a fine curtain. And if you are a maleficar or an apostate, you are a beacon to them, ripe for possession. Thus, the templars bring those here who are accused, but whose true nature cannot be proven. Aeonar is the final, terrible test.
Within a few days, we all heard it from the boy's cell – that horrid, gobbling shriek that never becomes familiar. The templars were quick. Knight-Captain Brynn sees that they keep their swords sharp as a mercy. We exhaled again.
I am Lily, myself, alone. I am no maleficar, just a Chantry initiate who loved deeply, and foolishly. My lover … my Jowan … revealed himself as a blood mage and was forced to flee his Circle. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to stand by his side. He swore the rumors were false – that he'd never think of using such terrible magic. But it was a lie, one of many he must have told me.
It has been years now, studying and praying in my cell or walking the halls where Tevinter mages once did their experiments. New faces arrive, and I lie awake waiting to hear that shriek. Sometimes the templars administer … tests, as abominations can be cunning and patient. The tests leave their scars, but each time I pass. I am Lily still.
"I will speak to my superiors again," Knight-Captain Brynn told me. But something has changed. There have been no Chantry messengers in weeks, and the templars' frowns deepen. The last messenger feared there might be open war between mages and the Templar Order. What does that mean for us? Aeonar is an isolated fortress, a fine prize for any mage skilled in demonology, and the templars might decide to purge this place, for their own safety.
With no new orders, Knight-Captain Brynn must decide for himself what to do. He's a good man. But as Aeonar teaches, sometimes being a good man means having a well-honed blade.
Hawke shuddered as she finished reading the final diary entry. She set it back down upon the desk, along with stacks of other books and scrolls. Seemingly all of the records within Aeonar had been gathered into one office by someone. Who had done it, or why, she couldn't say, for Aeonar was seemingly deserted. It was also exceedingly eerie. The Veil was thin here, Isabela had remarked on it the moment they arrived. It felt as if they were walking the halls of a nightmare.
"What in the Void happened here?" Hawke wondered aloud. "Where is everyone?"
Isabela shook her head, scowling. "I don't like this one bit. There's no bodies, no blood, no signs of a battle or any sort of struggle. It's as if everyone here just..."
"Vanished."
Perhaps they had all been pulled into the Fade by a rift, back when the Breach had opened. It seemed unlikely however. A few, perhaps, but not every single person.
Their trip through Merrill's Eluvian had seen them arrive at Aeonar ahead of Inquisitor Trevelyan and the Lord Seeker. As a result they had enough time to scout the fortress and prepare an ambush. They hadn't expected to find the place so completely devoid of life though. Making matters worse, Aeonar was giving Hawke flashbacks to Ostagar. Just like Ostagar, Aeonar was a fortress constructed around a Tevinter tower, in this case the Tower of Hessarian. Nevertheless the layout was identical to the Tower of Ishal. The only difference was that the fortress of Aeonar was intact, as the templars had been using it as a mage prison for years.
Regardless, Hawke didn't like it one bit. The whole place set her teeth on edge. All she wanted to do was leave, as quickly as possible, but she couldn't. The opportunity to ambush and kill the Inquisitor in a remote, seemingly abandoned fortress was too good to pass up. And she had to get the Book of Secrets if she wanted to help Bethany.
"Let's find a good position and start laying down some mines," she began to say, turning to Isabela. She stopped when she noticed something strange about her friend. Isabela was perched upon one of the office desks, and was frozen in the act of tossing one of her daggers into the air and catching it. Literally frozen in this case; she was as perfectly still as a statue, her dagger stuck in mid-air, partway through its descent. "Isabela?"
"Aeonar is a spiritually damaged place," said a familiar voice. Startled, Hawke spun around to find the Maker standing behind her.
"How are you here?!" she said, thoroughly taken aback by his sudden appearance. He gestured around at their surroundings.
"The Veil is worn so thin here, I am able to appear to you," he explained. "Aeonar was once a Tevinter magical research site. When Andraste was slain, her followers fell upon this place, and caught the Tevinter mages in a trance. Their bodies immobile as their minds walked the Fade, they were completely defenceless. It was a massacre. Since then, the Chantry has used this place as a prison, somewhere it could torture its victims away from the sight of the faithful masses. Countless men, women, and children were brutally tormented and slain here. The Chantry would have you believe they were all maleficar, apostates, abominations. But I know better."
"Why didn't you do something about it, then?"
He smirked. "Had I shown myself I would have been branded a demon and attacked without hesitation. In the past I have tried speaking to the Divines in their dreams, attempting in vain to make them see the error of their ways. I was always ignored. Seen as nothing more than a fiend testing their 'faith'. For all that I am the god worshipped by the Chantry, the faithful refuse to listen to me, simply because I do not say what they expect - or want - to hear. I am merely a figurehead, a symbol they use to beat their enemies into submission, regardless of what I wish."
Hawke waved a hand in front of Isabela's face, before turning back to the Maker. "Yes, well I'm working on it. Fairly soon the fabled 'Herald of Andraste' will be a thing of the past, so this time the Chantry won't have a hero to pull it back from the brink of oblivion."
"You must take care, Hawke," the Maker cautioned, "Aeonar is far more dangerous than you imagine. The research Tevinter was conducting here and at Ostagar was almost complete when they were stopped. When the Breach occurred, a group of Venatori came here to finish what their predecessors began."
"You mean it was the Venatori that made everyone here disappear?"
"Correct. The inhabitants of Aeonar were sacrificed in a blood magic ritual. If you aren't careful, your confrontation with the Inquisitor could provide enough bloodshed to complete the ritual. And that is something you do not want."
Hawke's brow furrowed at his explanation. "Blood magic? Look around, there isn't a drop of blood to be found. And where are the bodies? Where are these Venatori?"
The Maker tapped his metaphysical foot against the floor. "They're here, Hawke. Remember what happened at Ostagar, and what lay deep beneath the Tower of Ishal. Do what you must, but do not let the Venatori accomplish what they came here to do."
With that he vanished, and the flow of time returned to normal. Isabela let out a startled cry and dropped her dagger.
"Hawke! How did you-?"
Hawke turned to regard her. "What?"
Isabela gaped and pointed. "You just moved from over there to where you are now in the blink of an eye. How on earth did you do that?"
Hawke retrieved the fallen dagger and presented it to her with a flourish. "Oh, it was nothing. Just a minor miracle. Come along, we've got an ambush to prepare. The Inquisitor could arrive at any moment. We must prepare a proper welcome."