"They went this way!" called Isabela as she darted further into the caves.

"Isabela, wait!" called Hawke then groaned as the Rivaini pirate disappeared. He rolled his eyes at the mage and the elven warrior then grinned as he ran after her.

"Just marvellous," groaned Anders. "Because chasing a bunch of slavers into narrow caves is so my favourite thing to do."

"I thought it was talking," remarked Fenris dryly as he moved to follow the two human rogues. "You do so much of it."

"Oh hah hah," replied Anders as he grimaced. Shaking his head, he followed, bringing up the rear.

He tried not to think about how low the ceiling was or how the walls of the passage seemed to close in on him as they made their way deeper into the cave system.

They seemed to have been chasing this particular band of slavers for several days now. It was supposed to be just a quick jaunt out to the Wounded Coast; Aveline had lost a couple of patrols up here and her forces were too thinly spread out as it was to spare risking further manpower on it.

Hawke and whoever he drags along are expendable though, of course, Anders thought to himself, then dropped his eyes to the dusty floor of the passage in a flash of remorse. It was an unjust accusation to make; between them Hawke, Isabela and Fenris and, of course, himself were a force for pretty much anyone to reckon with in Kirkwall - and frequently out of it. Isabela had been keen to get out of Kirkwall for another chance to look for Castillion's relic, and he'd needed to gather more herbs anyway - the price of elfroot in even the Lowtown market had gone up recently even though the stuff that was coming in to the city was past its best and poor quality.

It was obvious why Fenris had agreed to tag along - between the puppy-dog eyes the elf made at the Ferelden rogue and his own ongoing search for his former master, the white-haired elf's motivations were pretty transparent.

Anders paused, one hand braced against a rock wall, shaking his head as he felt something - an unpleasant, unclean scratching whisper in the back of his head, felt rather than heard.

Darkspawn? This close to the surface? It couldn't be... "Hawke," called Anders, his voice low, as he hurried to catch up to the others.

Fenris gave him a disdainful look as Anders pushed passed him; the blond apostate ignored him as he hurried on ahead. "Hawke, wait! There's something down here."

"Yes, us, and a pack of unlucky slavers hopefully," replied the rogue with a grin. His smile slipped when he saw the expression on Anders' face. "What is it?" he asked, the smile disappearing.

"I'm not sure; whatever they are, they're not close enough for me to pick them out individually. It's darkspawn though. They shouldn't be anywhere near here," said Anders, his expression troubled.

Hawke sighed. "Well, as long as they're not right on top of us..." He shrugged. "Come on, with luck we'll corner those bastards, wipe them out and then be out and on our way again before the darkspawn get anywhere near us."

Anders nodded, distracted by the unclean crawling sensation in the back of his mind. They pressed on through the caves, the awareness of the darkspawn's presence somewhere in the vast labyrinthine sprawl of caverns below them vying with the mage's growing claustrophobia as they passed from one cave to the next.

They caught up to the slavers perhaps an hour after entering the cave complex, and the resulting fight was a welcome respite from worries about darkspawn. Isabela vanished to reappear behind one of the slavers, curved daggers flashing in the light of Fenris' brands as the elf lit up and charged into battle. Hawke's bow sang as he picked off slavers, and Anders wove magic to cast shields and haste spells on his companions before hurling lightning bolts and blasts of ice at the slavers as their opponents fanned out across the cave floor.

The blond apostate forgot his worries for a time as he cast paralysis on two slavers, making them easy targets for Isabela's blades as he encased the feet of a third in ice.

He almost didn't hear Hawke's cry of warning until it was too late; only Fenris' shoulder barrelling into his side shoving him out of the way saved him from the slaver's blade that would have taken out his throat had the elf not acted. He stumbled and turned to see a slaver across the cavern nock an bolt on the string of his crossbow as he squinted at Fenris then drew bead upon the unsuspecting elf.

"No!" cried Anders and threw himself forward, calling up magic in his hand.

Something hit him in the face, and he knew no more.

The first sensation he was aware of as he drifted towards consciousness once more was pain; a terrible, nauseating pain that radiated through his head right through his left eye, driving out all coherent thought. He hurt.

There was pain elsewhere in his body; his shoulder, his ribs, his left leg; but all the other pain dulled by comparison to the agony in his head.

He slowly became aware that he was lying on his back on the ground, his head pillowed in someone's lap. His face was wet with blood; he could feel it soaking into his hair. He couldn't open his eyes; they seemed to be crusted together with blood. His left eye was a pit of screaming fiery pain that throbbed in time to his heartbeat.

He couldn't remember how he had come to be lying here or why his head hurt so much. He could barely even remember his own name past the waves of dizziness that washed over him along with the agony and nausea.

Someone was stroking the side of his face, and he tried to turn his face away but cried out as the incautious movement made the pain in his head flare up.

"Easy there sweet thing," said a low voice - Isabela?

"What... what happened?" he moaned, trying to open his eyes. His eyelashes were gummed together with drying blood and his left eye wouldn't respond at all.

"You got in the way of a slaver's crossbow. By rights you ought to be dead; we're not entirely sure why you're not. The bolt went clean through," said a voice to his right.

"Hawke?" said Anders. Slaver? Crossbow? He remembered none of this. "Where am I?" he managed to murmur.

"You don't remember?" asked Hawke; Anders could hear the frown in the rogue's voice and could picture the scowl that he imagined Hawke directing his way. "Slavers, Wounded Coast? Gathering herbs?"

"I don't remember anything," said Anders faintly. "My head is aching."

"The mage is likely severely concussed, it is a wonder he survived at all," said a low rumbling voice. Andraste's tits, that was all he needed - Fenris to sneer over him in his current state. Except the elf's voice sounded almost... concerned?

"How bad is it?" asked Anders, still struggling to open his eyes.

"Bad enough," said Isabela, her voice sober and serious for once. "You were hit by a crossbow bolt through your left eye. Looks like it cracked your skull and went clean through. Fenris is right; you have a very serious head wound, and we don't dare move you right now."

"Can you heal yourself?" asked Hawke; Anders could hear him shifting closer.

"I can't even think straight, let alone cast anything," groaned Anders.

A potion bottle was pushed into his hand. "Can you sit up and drink this? It's a healing potion," said Hawke.

"Wait, don't-" began Fenris as Isabela and Hawke hauled Anders into an upright position.

The pain in his head intensified, as did the nausea and the sensation that the room was spinning.

"Watch out, he's going to-" cried out Isabela as Anders abruptly turned his face away and vomited, retching as his stomach seemed to turn itself inside out, his body convulsing as it sought to empty itself of everything he'd eaten or drunk that day.

"I did try to warn you," said the elf ruefully as Anders slumped, half-conscious, his head screaming in agony as his stomach twisted and spasmed, empty and painful. The mage tried to speak, but it was too much effort. Consciousness fled once more.

He didn't know how much time had passed whilst he was unconsciousus. When next he awoke, he was lying on a bedroll, a soft pillow under his head, and he was covered in a couple of blankets. He could feel a bandage had been wound around his head. He could open his right eye, but his left eye wouldn't respond. He was dazed and disoriented, his vision blurred.

His head still ached, but he could think a little clearer through the pain that throbbed from his left eye right through his head. He managed to turn his head a little.

Someone had lit a fire; Hawke, Fenris and Isabela sat around it, talking in low voices. They appeared to be trying to work out how to get him back up to the surface and into the city.

"He cannot go back to the clinic; he is no fit state to care for himself much less others in his present state," said Fenris.

"Let's worry about where he'll go after we've gotten him out of these caves shall we?" said Hawke. "He's in no fit state to be moved right now. I'm not even sure just how he managed to survive an arrow through the eye."

"I have heard of such things before," rumbled Fenris quietly. "It is rare but... not unheard of. The bolt was unfletched and had a simple conical quarrel instead of the more usual barb. It passed through causing minimal damage. Has it been an arrow, Anders would have lost his life and not merely an eye."

His eye. That would explain why he couldn't open his left eye.

He lifted a hand to his face and felt the soft dressing over the eye socket. Blind in one eye. He swallowed hard, and wondered how much of the eye had survived the passage of the quarrel. That would explain why his head hurt so appallingly and why he couldn't remember much of what had happened.

He laid his palm over the dressing and reached inside for his magic...

And felt nothing.

He must have made some noise or sound of alarm, as suddenly Hawke, Fenris and Isabela were all around him, hanging over him.

"Anders, it's OK, you're safe," said Hawke gently.

"Just relax sweet thing, we'll be getting you home soon. You'll be alright once we get back to Kirkwall," soothed Isabela.

Fenris was uncorking a healing potion. "He's likely in pain; help him sit up," he suggested.

"No, you don't understand!" cried Anders as Hawke got an arm around his shoulders and helped him to sit up. "My magic - I can't feel my magic!"

"What do you mean?" asked Fenris, scowling as he narrowed his eyes at the blond apostate.

"I can't feel it; there's this.. empty place inside where it should be!" cried Anders desperately as he reached inside again and felt nothing, not the merest hint of the Fade inside where it had always been his whole life. "It's gone - my magic is gone!"

"But... you mean you're... Tranquil?" asked Hawke slowly as he stared down at the distraught mage.

Anders shook his head in spite of the pain as tears began to roll down his cheek from his one good eye.

"I don't know what I am any more," he said. "I just know it's gone. There's nothing inside. My magic has gone."

Hawke, Isabela and Fenris exchanged worried looks as the blond apostate wept in Hawke's arms.