As dusk approached, she put on her leathers, which were so clean she could barely believe they were even her own. It was chilly out, but she didn't dare put anything on over them besides a cloak, wanting to stay maneuverable. Once it was dark enough she was fairly sure that her presence on the rooftops would not be glaringly obvious to anyone on the street, she took off to the corner of the slums where there stood an apartment building whose roof backed on to the wall around the Alienage. The latch on the entrance to the building had been broken for decades - likely by design - and she quickly ascended four stories, and rapped on the door of the one flat at the top.
"Who is it?" the woman inside called.
"Ten Tabris," she called.
The woman, a middle aged weaver by the name of Mallie Lee, opened up and hurried her inside, "What are you doing back here, lass?"
"I need to get into the Alienage, I've heard it's bad news."
"They say it's a plague," Mallie said, "Oh, I know, that's probably another lie from the palace. Seems that's all we get these days. Come on, you know the routine."
Ten followed Mallie into her flat, through her living room, and into the back bedroom where there was a hatch to the roof on the ceiling. Mallie pulled it open, for Ten would have had to jump for it. Ten went to the corner of the room where a ladder was kept.
"Thanks Mallie," said Ten. She handed Mallie a sovereign.
"Toll's five silvers," said Mallie, "Where'd you even get this much money?"
"I've come up in the world," said Ten, "Consider it a downpayment. Passage for me and anyone else who needs it until lockdown's over."
"Anytime," said Mallie, "And tell your cousin she does a better job with that arthritis salve than you did."
"Hey!" Ten exclaimed, feigning indignance.
She scrambled up the ladder and pulled herself onto the roof of the building. The wall lay to her left, and with the trees still in full leaf, though said leaves were certainly browner than before, there was no line of vision to the sentry box below. Still, she crept along as quietly as she always had. The wall rose only a few feet above the roof, and she scrambled over it, landing on the rooftop of her own building. She jumped to the branch of the tree and shinnied down the four stories, finally lowering herself to the street. She walked quickly to the flat that had been hers. It was unlocked, and inside, Shianni was seated at the kitchen table in front of a bottle and a glass.
"What are you doing here?" She leapt to her feet, to the great offense of the black cat who had been in her lap, and embraced Ten.
"I got your message, believe it or not," said Ten, "Wait, who's this?"
"Oh, that's Don Furrnando," said Shianni.
Ten looked around. In the corner were the Comtesse deMieux and Hairball MacAsshole, calico littermates whose presence Ten had put up with for several years, if only because it meant no complaints about the Reverend Mother. But then there was also a gray stranger with half his tail missing sitting on the windowsill.
"How many more cats have you gotten since I left?"
"A few…" said Shianni.
"You haven't let them in my room, have you?"
"No, no, of course not," said Shianni.
Ten sighed, not wanting to pick a fight over the quantity of felines. Shianni was grown now and technically it was her flat. Ten had absolutely no leg to stand on as she had for the four or five years when she was definitely the adult and Shianni definitely the child. Though… looking at the tumbleweeds of fur, black, white, gray, and ginger, that lined the baseboards, she wondered if it wasn't something she really ought to address at some point. Odd, she thought, usually my dad would be by to scold her about cleaning. Maybe he thinks it's not his place now that I'm not living here. She, instead, went to pick a fight about the other subject that the two of them were constantly at odds over.
"How much of that have you had?" she asked, pointing at the glass bottle. It was unmarked. She'd definitely gotten it off Faean the distiller for cheap, the dregs that he couldn't sell to the bars outside the Alienage.
"I just sat down," said Shianni.
"Well put it away," said Ten, "I need your help and you need to be sober. When did you write that letter?"
"It's been six days," said Shianni, "Whole thing started about a month ago. When they showed up."
"Who's 'they,' Shianni?" asked Ten.
"Strange folks," she said, "Foreign. It started with a couple, then more showed up. At first we all thought they were just doing a census, they would just come by peoples' doors and ask them questions - how many people live there, how many children, what their relations to each other were. Then a little later they said there was some kind of disease spreading, started taking people in for treatment, said they needed to quarantine the sick ones. They took over that warehouse by the river, they're calling it a clinic. And then the guards just sort of… stopped coming."
"How many have they taken?" asked Ten.
"I'm not entirely sure. More than a dozen. Less than twenty I think," she said,.
"Anyone we know? What about my dad? What about Soris?"
Shianni looked at her, "Why do you think I'm drinking?"
"Because you have a problem with the bottle, we've known that for years," said Ten.
"Fuck off," Shianni scoffed, "Not like you're a good Chantry mouse."
"I assure you I'm sober. Who is it that's running this clinic? Not the Chantry?"
"They had a doctor in. Had a strange accent. Tevinter I think."
"Yeah. I heard they brought in private security," Ten said.
"Well that explains that," said Shianni, "The guards all sort of stopped coming one day. Well…. Except for one."
"Really," said Ten.
"It's the part I couldn't put in the letter. Remember the Sergeant? The one you may or may not have been having an affair with?"
"Don't be silly," Ten scoffed, "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, Ten, everyone saw the two of you making out by the sentry box. It was a joke that whole spring."
"Ugh, I guess I'm really not nearly as sneaky as I think I am," Ten sighed.
"Well you ought to know, then, that he didn't disappear with the rest of the guardsmen," said Shianni, "They shut him in here with us when the rest of them disappeared. It was… pretty bad. Someone, well, probably a few people, just chucked him over the wall. He'd clearly been beaten, definitely by more than three others."
"Do you know who?" asked Ten.
"Not specifically," said Shianni, "But I have an idea. The billy clubs leave a pretty distinct bruising pattern. You know that as well as I."
"Shit," sighed Ten, "Do you know why?"
"Well I'm guessing from the fact that they carved the word 'halfbreed' into his chest with a straight razor that that had something to do with that," said Shianni.
Ten sat down at the table and put her head in her hands. Well, at least he didn't get lynched.
"Endania the midwife patched him up, I let him stay here while he recovered," said Shianni, smirking, "I figured you wouldn't mind him sleeping in your bed."
"Maker's breath Shianni, this is serious," Ten sighed.
"Ten, did you know this whole time that his father was an elf?"
Ten nodded.
"I never really got a good look at him before. Haven't seen a halfbreed pass that well since Ioan. But that's neither here nor there. That funny 'doctor' at the 'clinic' barged in on the third day, dragged him up right out of bed and brought him there."
"When did they take my dad?" asked Ten.
"I don't know. It registered probably two days ago that he hadn't been to check on me in awhile."
"Anything else weird?"
"There's a strange caravel docked at the river," said Shianni, "They said that it was to transport the medics and supplies."
"And nobody's doing anything about it?" Ten demanded.
"Soris tried," said Shianni, "And I haven't seen him in four days."
"All right," said Ten, "Well, we're going to check it out ourselves. Or I am. You don't have to come if you don't want to."
"I was about to steel my nerves to do that very thing," said Shianni, glancing at the bottle of moonshine on the table.
"No," said Ten, "You're staying sober. And we're going in stealth."
"You think that's necessary? You're armed to the teeth. Far better than anyone I've seen go in or out of that building."
"I suppose you've a point there. Here, you take my boot dagger. And my throwing knives. And I think I have…"
"Oh don't worry," said Shianni. She reached under the table and pulled out a familiar ax. It had had some sharpening, and a new, shorter handle with a leather loop at the end. Bannkiller was burned into the wood of the throat, "It's yours. Soris had it fixed up for you if you ever came back. I'll trade it for that hatchet."
"All yours," said Ten, grinning, unhooking her hatchet and sliding it across the table. She took hold of Bannkiller, "This feels… right."
"Looks right too," said Shianni, "You like the graffiti?"
"That was you?" asked Ten.
"My idea, but Morran drew it and your dad made the stencils. I don't think he knew what we were going to do with them… we handed a dozen out around the Alienage and some of the other neighborhoods. They paint it on walls when someone's getting too big for their britches."
"Always wanted to be a folk hero," Ten said.
"Good," said Shianni, "Because it's time for some heroics."
The streets were strangely deserted as they made their way to the warehouse by the canal. Ten heard the familiar creak as a hundred shutters cracked and two hundred eyes watched the two women scurry through the streets. The heavy oaken door was locked but, having learned a thing or two since Daveth tried to teach her that day in the Korcari Wilds, Ten took two pins out of her hair and made short work of it.
"They teach you that in the Grey Wardens?" Shianni asked skeptically.
"I've learned things you would not believe," said Ten, "But I use more of what I learned here.". She eased the door open. It opened into the warehouse's office, where there was a man sleeping at the desk. The room was lit by an oil lamp that had burned down. She put her finger to her lips and crept up behind him, sliding her hunting knife from her boot. She put it to his throat and leaned down.
"Boo!" she said in his ear.
He woke with a start, but she seized him by the hair and held him still, "Gonna want to stay quiet there, love," she said, "There's a blade at your throat and the nice lady over there has a throwing knife with your name on it. Which is what, by the way?"
"Who the fuck are you?" he whispered, having the good sense not to make a scene.
"I'm the Vengeful Bride," she said, "And you people apparently never learn not to fuck with mine. So let's start again. What is your name?"
"Seranus Vos," he said, "I'm just a clerk. I promise. I didn't… I'm not who you want."
"All right, Seranus Vos," said Ten, "What sort of operation is this, that needs a clerk?"
"It's a clinic."
She put a little pressure on the blade. "Fine. Fine," he gasped, "Let me go, and I'll unlock that drawer, and you can see for yourself. I have absolutely no intention of dying for any of this."
Ten let him up, but kept her dagger poised to strike.
As promised, he unlocked one of his desk drawers and set a ledger on top of it.
"It's all there," he said, "Can I go?"
Ten squinted in the dim torchlight. It was a ship's manifest, for a boat scheduled to leave the Port of Denerim five days hence, bound for the Imperium. Her blood ran cold. Slavery was still legal in the Imperium, after all. Her eyes went to the cargo.
Tirin Iovanas, 45, elf
Soris Tabris, 23, elf
Nadera Eventine, 32, elf
Cyrion Tabris, 47, elf
Kapollos Lin, 30, elf
Yereni Kovalis, 37, halfbreed
Anton Villais, 26, halfbreed - must be marked
Mithlani Eventine, 7, elf
Enlir Kalaides, 42, halfbreed
Seldanna Aierkos, 34, elf
Sionnan Aierkos, 28, elf
Eionwin Sharhani, 16, elf
There was space for fifty more entries.
Ten looked bitterly up at Vos.
"I showed you," he said, "I helped you! I just do the books! And look, it was your king that ordered it. Look, his seal is right there."
"Ferelden has no king," said Ten. She leafed through the pages, and indeed, on the docking permits, there was the seal of Loghain MacTir.
"The man in charge, then," said Vos, "'I promise. It wasn't me."
"You're a fucking slaver," Ten spat, "I don't care if you clap the irons on yourself or just clean their pisspots. You are a fucking slaver. Do you know what happens to slavers?"
"I'm not a slaver! I just… I just keep the books."
"Books of people," she shouted, not caring for stealth anymore, "Shianni, take his hands. Good luck keeping any books without them, you fucking pissant."
"Ten… what?" Shianni squeaked.
"You heard me," she said, "I spent two hours sharpening that hatchet this afternoon. Use it. Take his fucking hands."
"Wait wait!" Vos protested, "You take my hands off, I will bleed out. It'll take hours. Give me a clean death and I'll show you where they're held."
"Sounds like a good bargain to me," Shianni said, looking a little sick.
"You Tevinter were always a wily bunch," said Ten, narrowing her eyes, "But all right, Master Clerk, show me how the sausage is made and I'll make it so quick your head won't know where the rest of you has gone."
He first unlocked a door into an anteroom. There were three cages, two empty, and one housing a little girl who was curled up asleep on a dirty mat on the floor, clutching a stuffed halla to her chest.
"You have the keys for that?" Ten asked.
"No," Vos said.
"Keep a knife on him, Shianni," Ten said. She went up and fiddled with her hairpins in the lock until it clicked open. She knelt by the girl's side. "Mithlani," she whispered, stroking the girl's dark hair. Her eyes opened.
"Mama?"
"No love, it's only Ten the Alchemist," said Ten, "Do you know where you are?"
"No," said the girl, her eyes going wide. She sat up, "The man said I was sick and I had to go see the doctor. But then…it's been dark for so long."
"You're still in the Alienage," said Ten, "In the warehouse near the river. You know, the big one with the white shutters. Do you know the one I'm talking about?"
"Yes," she said.
"If you go out the door, do you know how to get home?"
"Yes," said the girl, "Where's my mama?"
"We're getting her next," said Ten, "But I need you to go out that door and run straight home to your brothers and dad. Shut and bar the door. Don't open it until morning. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," she said.
"Good lass," said Ten. She helped the girl to her feet. She looked like they hadn't fed her once in the days she'd been in that cage. A little unsteady, but gaining confidence, she made for the door, one hand on the stuffed halla, and scurried out into the night.
"I think I can find the rest of them on my own," said Ten. She walked up to Vos, raised her ax, and sliced his head in half right down his nose before he could even register what was happening.
"Ten!" Shianni exclaimed, putting her hand over her mouth.
"A little girl, Shianni," said Ten, "He kept a little girl in a cage. He was going to sell her away from her dad, her family. Probably wouldn't even have kept her and her mother together. A little girl who still sleeps with a stuffed halla." The tears had started, furiously running down her cheeks.
"I know," said Shianni, who had begun crying herself, though over sympathy for little Mithlani or horror at what her cousin had just done to a clerk probably only making a few silver an hour, Ten was not sure.
"Don't chicken out on me now, Shianni," said Ten, "You have the nerve for it, I know you do. I saw you shove a torch in Vaughan's face. My dad is somewhere in here. And Soris. And other peoples' dads and brothers and cousins and mas and…"
"I know," said Shianni again, "But you've changed, Ten."
"No I haven't," Ten said, "I've just gotten more like myself."
Shianni looked down, "You're scaring me," she said quietly.
"Then go get drunk alone at home and I'll do it myself," Ten said. She regretted it as soon as she said it, and Shianni flinched as though Ten had slapped her.
"No," Shianni sighed finally, "You can't fight all of our battles alone."
"Oh I certainly can," said Ten, "But I'd rather not."
"Just… don't ask me to perform any more amputations," said Shianni.
"I won't. Sorry about that. Now come on, let's put an end to this."
Ten furiously swiped at her eyes, succeeding at removing the tears but, in doing so, painting her face with the blood of the unfortunate clerk, and moved further into the building.