Chapter 16

Turngate

Author's Notes: So, this has been a long time coming! Apologies in advance for this taking such a long time to get back to. I hope it was worth the wait. I've had a chance to really think about where this story is going, so sorry if this chapter creates more questions than answers! I have been thinking a lot about the fact that Anders, at this point, basically has a version of himelf in Vengeance in the Fade, as well as his physical body in the real world, and whether that would give him rare abilities not seen for millenium...
I hope anyone who is still reading enjoys, and hopefully I can get this story back on track!

Stories are gateways. From a young age he had known this; relied upon it. Sometimes gateways to sadness, sometimes to happiness, sometimes to fright or excitement.

Sometimes to the truth.

When he was a child Anders remembered the best of the stories for himself. The ones that made him feel safe and strong. The ones his mother told to him. Alone and afraid in the Circle tower, his childish hands scratching out a map with a snag of charcoal he'd stolen from the fireplace, a map back home, he kept those stories safe and tight and close and believed, and believed, and believed.

Beautiful princesses and mighty mages, fighting dragons on scorched earth, falling in love and being happy ever after.

Her stories taught him not to be afraid of what he was. In her stories, the hero never doubted themselves. Walking the corridors of the Ferelden Circle he found his eyes always drawn to the windows; what was happening beyond those walls, upon those far hills, where his feet could tread if only he could be free? Instead, he contented himself with the myriad of books in the library, in whose pages he had drifted, until the pll was too strong and he'd fled, time and time again, trying to impose his own story upon the land.

"Hello?"

In those stories the heroes were strong, commanded armies, fought villains single handed.

"Is there...is there anyone?"

In those stories, they were never afraid, because they knew the ending.

"Maker please. I don't know...where I am."

Anders wished he knew his. Right now, he felt as if he may be close to it, and yet still he was alive. The ground beneath him was rocky, jagged, but instead of cold and wet it was warm to the touch. Not like the smooth, chill stone of his cell. Nothing like that. And then, when he'd looked up...

"Please. Someone."

It was then that he'd realised it was not his voice that spoke. His mind still reeled and he was not sure of anything; dazed, hurt. He tried to take in his reality one step at a time.

The landscape around him was vast and dark. The ground was only just visible, in contrast to the horizon where a pale, sickly orange light glowed. The sky above was pitch. There were no stars. There were no clouds. Just the orange, sickly light. Just the outline of the ragged rock. There was a dread feeling in the air, heavy and oppressive. It made him want to curl up against the warm, sharp rock and close his eyes.

Am I sleeping? He tried to convince himself desperately.

"Anybody?" the voice pleaded, choked with sobs, "Please?"

And yet the pain in his legs and his arms as he pushed himself upwards was too real to be a dream. Standing was difficult. Should I be awake? Anders asked himself. Then he realised, should I be here at all? Where is this, where am I? Where was I before? The perspective shifted and he thought he could remember...

...the water rushing into his lungs, deep and choking and terrifying and then he was pulled up, hand fisted in his hair and the voice shouted in his ear "Tell us the truth. Confess and you will go to the Maker pure. Confess!" and his own voice, begging, begging dear Maker please, and then the water, again it rushed up as it swallowed his face and his mouth and his nose and he screamed and screamed until...

...he caught himself as his breathing became frighteningly precious. Anders closed his eyes and lifted his hands up towards his face. It was too dark, he could barely see them. They seemed different. When he looked down he could just make out the contours of his body, naked in the glow. It was then he realised he was shaking. His legs hurt. His back ached. He thought there might be blood, but it was so dark.

So dark here.

"H-hello," he managed, voice thick with a rough edge; he cleared his throat but the action made him wince; it was like swallowing glass. He tried again, "Hello?"

"S-someone? Hello? Is that someone there?"

"I'm here," he said, finally taking in, as his head began to clear, that he had no idea where here was, "I'm right here."

"Keep talking. Please, I'll follow your voice."

"Alright," he said, his voice breaking; he huddled his arms around his body and tried strain his eyes in the gloom, "I'm here. Right here. Can you come to me? I-I don't think I can walk."

"I'm coming. Just wait," the voice sounded closer, "I'm coming."

"I'm here," he said; beneath his feet the rock seemed to pulse, "I'm here."

Boom, boom, boom. The ground seemed to vibrate with it, a sound as if from far off. Anders tried to gauge where the voice was coming from. There was a shuffling of feet. The thought of someone else, anyone else, being close was a relief he wasn't proud of. This place felt wrong, so very wrong.

How did I get here?

"Am I close?" it asked.

"Here. Yes. I'm just here."

"Thank the Maker," the voice was laughing in its sob, "I thought I'd never fi..."

And the voice stopped with a sound that made him recoil. A wet snap. The smell was the first thing that hit him. The stench. Something rotten and foul. And the air, the air moved with the feeling of something large, something huge in the darkness rushing past him. Anders staggered backwards and fell with a choked cry, landing hard against the rocks. The pain was hideous, something sharp had gone through the skin, and there was blood. He could smell blood. He choked out a sob, trying to lift himself from the sharp rocks, crawling, his stomach turning, trying to look up and see the owner of the voice.

And then he turned and saw. The thing, the towering thing there. A mass in the darkness, its form misshapen yet familiar, catching the sickly orange light like a mirror. In its great mouth there was a body, some sort of body, black with blood, broken and hanging like a child's doll. And behind them both, caught in the silhouette of the hideous sky, stood a great city, towers screaming into the depths, coiling and rigid as a stone snake, glistening in the low light like the sheen on wet bone.

A great, black city stood before him.

He would have screamed, had he not suddenly remembered just how he got there, as if the thought were not truly his own. As if he were being told a story, a fairytale from a long, long time ago. As if a voice had whispered to him how to…

…remember the way back home.

There was juniper on the air. He could smell it, and he knew it because it was a sharp smell that made him think of the drink Varric like to import to the Hanged Man. Antivan juniper wine. It was sweet, but with a bitter tang that made your mouth twist even as you enjoyed it. A scent that made him think of laughter.

Opening his eyes proved difficult. One felt like a rolling door, as if it were on hinges. The other was swollen shut, he could tell. Had felt it before. A particularly gruesome barfight over a game of wicked grace, in a pub not far from the Circle during his third escape attempt. A black eye as big as the fist that had made it in the first place. Yet from the limited view he had from the one he could prise open, he saw where he was and he knew it.

The garden. His garden. At home. He was home. He was home.

It was raining, and he was lying on the cold stone of the garden walkway. In the corner of his vision he could see the blackened tip of the burnt tree. Smell the heavy scent of the soil. Sitting up was awkward, which he began to remember why as he looked at his right arm, bandaged and dressed. It felt tight and constricted and gave off a continuous, dull ache. The smell of elfroot and dragonthorn became distinct, a familiar balm he used to stop infection. Broken, he remembered it was broken. They had broken it, and his fingers. Just on his right arm. Looking up again gave him a narrow view of a pale, grey sky.

Laughter. At first he didn't realise where it was coming from. And then he did. It was his own. Laughing. He was laughing, even as it shook his shattered body. Laughing because he knew he was alive. Laughing because he knew now that he could understand everything that had been a mystery.

"Anders!"

Turning to look to his left was difficult but that voice demanded to be seen. It had been only days, surely, he was sure it must have been only days since he had last seen him and yet time had been spun thin and stretched and seemed immeasurable. Another lifetime, that's how it felt, another lifetime since they had last been together.

"Hawke," Anders said, his gravelly voice thick with relief, "Maker it's really you."

And it was, Garret Hawke dressed in clothes that looked as if he may have been wearing them for weeks, his beard longer than he remembered, his eyes bright and his face taught. He rushed into the courtyard and dropped to his knees by him, hands coming up to take hold of Anders' face and turn it gently side to side.

"Are you hurt? Tell me what's wrong. How did you get out here? I thought I'd lost you again," he said, voice thick with anger and fear, "I left you in the bedroom and then that fool Callum starts shouting that you're gone and...Anders, for the love of the Maker, tell me how you got out here!"

Lifting his hands was a challenge, but Anders could bear the pain if it was to hold him. It didn't take much for Hawke to lean in, gathering him close and letting out a soft sound of frustrated distress.

"You fool, you bloody fool. Don't leave me again," Hawke was muttering against his ear as Anders closed his eye and drank in the gentle touch, "You understand? Don't ever leave me again."

"It's not an easy thing to explain."

That was how he started, once he had been changed into new, dry clothes and Hawke had insisted that he eat something, some weak soup Orana had concocted, delivered by the teary elf who had taken one look at Anders and had to leave with a sob. He'd complied to Hawke's every demand because, little that he could see of the world, he could hear the distress in Hawke's voice and he knew that allowing the man his control was the best way to say he was sorry.

And Callum. Callum was there, sitting off to his right on the chair by the bed while Hawke fussed and made Anders lie down and propped him up with goose-down pillows. He was quiet but Anders could tell he was not angry. Not truly, even if he was staring at him rather harshly.

So he had talked, because it seemed to be what both men wanted, even if neither would say so.

"Firstly..." Anders cleared his throat and winced; a moment later Hawke was beside him with a mug, helping him drink, honey and water and mint, "thank you," he said as Hawke sat down next to him on the bed, "I...please, I want to say I'm sorry."

"You don't get to say that," Callum finally spoke up, his voice heavy.

"Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you..." Hawke started fiercely, standing to confront Callum.

"No!" Anders said, as loud as he could manage; Hawke stopped, standing between Callum and Anders like a wall, "No it's...it's alright Hawke."

"To the Black it's alright..."

"I was selfish."

"What?" Hawke turned, looking at him.

"I was selfish," Anders said again, taking a deep breath and feeling his chest protest at the action; he let the breath out and bit down on the pain, "and I'm sorry. To both of you."

There would have been silence if the crackling fire in the grate hadn't decided to spark wildly as a small twig tumbled down into the glowing coals. Callum was staring at him intently. Anders felt as if...as if there was nothing he could say that he would regret. Because everything that had happened since he'd walked through those doors with his templar guards had been a decent into hell.

And somehow, somehow, he'd returned. Returned to both of them, and he would be damned to the Black now if he was going to let his pride stand in the way of that.

"You can shout at me if that's what you want. You can damn me. You can even leave if...if that's what you want," Anders looked up at Callum as he spoke, making the tall man look away, eyes bright and glassy, "but just don't throw any punches please. My body isn't up to that right now."

His joke fell flat and Anders wished he could make things right, but so many things were wrong. So many, many things.

"No one's throwing anything," Hawke said abruptly, hands on his hips, "just...I..." he sighed, head hanging down. When he took the few steps to the bed and sat down heavily Anders wished he was able to be as he once was.

To think of nothing but the happiness of those he loved, think of nothing else but the injustice of the mages, think of nothing else but the burden of the coming war.

Instead…

Instead he let Hawke speak, because the man seemed to be on the edge of causing bodily harm to someone and Anders guessed that if Hawke wouldn't punch him then it would be Callum since he was the only other person in the room. Anders kept his mouth shut.

"A lot has happened, since when you left," Hawke started softly, seeming to struggle for the words to describe what he had seen, "I mean…before you woke up."

"Before?" Anders frowned.

"You didn't tell him?" Callum asked, dark eyes watching him closely.

"It wasn't first on my fucking list, no," Hawke bit out.

"Tell me what?" Anders asked, trying to hide his desperation.

"You've been out cold for three days," Hawke said, worry evident in his voice, "ever since Cullen brought you back here you've been unconscious."

"Unconscious," Anders repeated softly.

"I couldn't even tell why," Callum shrugged, sitting forwards and clasping his hands, wringing his fingers "you just wouldn't wake up. I tried everything I could but...nothing. It's like..."

Anders saw Hawke shiver and knew why it must have been, even if he almost wasn't able to believe it. And also what it must have been like, his body lifeless but alive, just as he had been in Weisshaupt. He closed his eyes and wished he wasn't such a fool. He wished he didn't have a purpose. He wished he'd never...

"I wasn't here, I was there..." Anders said without thinking, stopping only when he realised how mad that sounded; Hawke and Callum were watching him, wearing matching frowns; it seemed to hit him then, how little he'd regarded anything but his own mad struggle. To be watched with such intensity by the two people he loved the most in the world, it was difficult to bear.

"it's a long story," he finally managed to say

"Then maybe you should start from the top," Hawke said simply.

And then he reached over and took Anders' left hand gently, the soft touch of his calloused hand enough to make Anders realise what he was going to have to tell. His own memories, mixed with those of another, mixed again into a vast pool of arcane knowledge so incredible that he still could not comprehend it.

"Honestly," Anders said, shaking his head, "I don't think the top is that important. Best I start at the bottom."

It had all started with the Band of Three.

Truthfully, Anders had encountered the name even before the mysterious letters had begun arriving at his home, delivered by Callum unbeknownst to him, with the script inside of the Band of Three's exploits. Anders had first heard the name from Sabine one night when they'd been waiting on the Wounded Coast for a ship to arrive.

It had been dark, it was winter and before dawn, and they had sat together on the sand huddled for warmth. He had been telling some fool story about an exploit of his, something or other about an escape from the tower which he was having fun embellishing with half truths and outright fabrications, when Sabine had laughed so hard she had choked and said,

"Oh my, sounds like something the Band of Three would do!"

"The band of what?" he'd replied, a little put out by having his story interrupted.

"You've never heard of them? Why Anders, I'm disappointed. A young maverick mage such as yourself ought to know of other mavericks, shouldn't he?"

It hadn't truly stuck, even when Sabine told him the tale. More of a rumour, really. A tale of three mage scholars who had sought out Kirkwall to learn it's hidden knowledge and had fallen to the power of what they found there. Nothing new, and nothing he'd particularly cared for at the time. In fact, when he started receiving the letters with the Band of Three's exploits contained within, he almost forgot that Sabine had ever told him the tale. He only remembered when he'd begun researching the letters when the words had itched at him, bit at him.

He'd had to know. Such words had not been written lightly, and by people whom he felt some strange connection to. So he had done what he felt he had at least been trained his entire life to do: study and research. Books upon books, stolen from libraries around Kirkwall, and some sourced from further houses of knowledge when the chance had been given. And then the magister's son had fallen into the mix, during the attack that changed the tide of far more than just Kirkwall's destiny. Tebrius, Danarius' son, had brought with him a disgust for his father and his father's beliefs, and yet…

How wrong he had been. How wrong they had been. How wrong everyone was. His mind reeled with the thought of it. Everything had changed. Everything was different now. How was he to understand? How was he to tell others?

The Band of Three. When he thought of them they seemed so insignificant now. And yet he had followed them, down into the pits of the Black. Those three who had sought to harness the power of the ancient Magisters, who had understood that Kirkwall had not been a city at all, not truly. The three who had finally found out the truth.

"Kirkwall…is a portal?"

Hawke sounded confused, dubious and curious all at once. Anders drank while he let them absorb the information. Considering it's the least insane thing I have to tell them I might as well let them enjoy it, Anders thought.

"It's not so important that it is a portal," Anders elaborated, clearing his throat, "so much that it was designed in great detail to be a portal. Have you ever looked at a map of Kirkwall? I mean in detail."

"I only own one," Hawke admitted, "one of Worthy's contacts in the cartographer's guild had one made for me. But what would a map show?"

"Bring it to me?" Anders asked softly.

While Hawke left to fetch it, Callum stayed. There was silence. Anders licked his lips. What do I say to you? he thought. There was so much left between them that was unsaid, it seemed as if there was a vast abyss separating them. And yet when Anders finally opened his mouth and said,

"When I told you I was sorry, I meant it Callum. Truly, I am. And if you still want to leave then…"

It was cut off with a swift hand at the side of his face and a kiss against his lips. Soft, warm and gentle, enough that he felt no need to move away from a sensation so pure in its intentions. Soft fingers stroked his neck, warm breath puffed against his face. When the kiss finally ended Anders felt himself try and follow those retreating lips. When he opened his eyes, it was only then that he realised he had closed them at all.

"Bloody fool," Callum was saying, standing up and scratching at his face, "you're a bloody, fucking fool and I hate you."

"Suppose I was asking for that," Anders said with a sigh, "but you have to understand, this isn't just about us anymore. The things that have happened, Callum…Maker, I don't even know how to explain. Not so that you'll believe me. After what happened..."

Because the oil slithered across his skin like a warm, wet heat. Nothing compared to the heat that came after. A singing in the air like a high note, and it would take a while to realise that it was his voice, screaming as the oil was ignited. The straps barely held him down, grating at his bound flesh as he tried desperately to free himself. It was then that he perhaps saw the first signs of doubt in the templar's actions, in their eyes.

But not in Meredith's.

The sound of approaching footsteps had Callum sit strictly back in his chair, lips sealed once more, and pulled Anders back to the present. Anders sighed, shaking his head, as Hawke rushed into the room with a scroll he was eagerly unrolling in his hands.

"It's a bloody mess in that library," he was saying, "I'll have to go though it one of these days. Here, love, is this any use?"

And as Hawke laid the map out upon the bedcovers, and Callum looked at it as if nothing could ever make the world be what he needed it to be, Anders knew that there would always be this. There would always be part of him that loved them more than he could ever express, and that would be important, so important to remember. He would have to remember it, remind himself every day of what that meant so that his humanity was not lost. After everything that had happened.

Because everything was so much bigger than he was now, so much more important, so much more dangerous. The idea of what the world was now and what it had once been were so disspirate that is hurt to think of. That the true nature of the Fade had elluded them all. Of what Justice truly was, and what he had made Anders into.

When he reached out his hand and felt the power there build it was as if he could feel the Fade around him. Feel it seeping through the Veil as if desperate to touch him, as if he were summoning it willingly. And the blue light appeared at his fingertips first as if he were drawing lines upon the air itself, shimmering, powerful. Then the lines began to fall, drifting down onto the paper like eager snakes, shifting to place themselves where commanded, along streets and around houses, along canals and even through the great harbour; Kirkwall lit up in a blaze of magic so pure that Anders thought he could feel it humming in his veins.

"Maker…Anders what..?" he heard Callum saying in a horse whisper; when Anders looked to his right he found Callum out of his chair, standing wide eyed. Hawke stood by him with a look of fear that Anders tried to ignore.

"Tell him, Callum," Anders ordered, making the man flinch, "tell him what it is."

"What's happening?" Hawke asked as if he were asking the gods themselves to explain, and not the two men in the room at all, "Please, what is that?"

"It's a…in the Circle they taught us how to bind spirits and…" Callum shook his head and faltered on his feet, "Anders please, stop. This is wrong, you can't!"

"Tell him what it is!" Anders barked.

And he could feel it, building around him, the Veil wavering like a silken sheet in a breeze. The sound of distant shores lapping, of ethereal winds whistling through ancient ruins of knowledge and time. Around them all, in that bedroom on the second floor, the Fade danced like the northern lights above the Anderfells, shimmering and cascading.

And on the map that lay upon the covers Callum pointed a shaking finger, now showing the outlines of glyphs written into the shape of the streets themselves, into winding alleyways and market plazas. There the magic that flowed from Anders outlined a spell long lost to the mists of the slave uprising of Tevinter and the Magisters' march to reclaim Kirkwall.

"It's a…it can't be."

"What? For the love of the Maker someone please tell me what is happening?" Hawke pleaded.

"A bridge," Anders said, finally running out of patience, "you see it don't you?" he said to Callum, the tall man flinching, "a bridge. A portal. Whatever you wish to call it. Kirkwall," Anders said, knowing that his eyes flashed with the light of the Fade as he spoke to them both, "is a rift just waiting to happen."

Anders allowed the power to stem, creating a wobbling effect in the shimmering world around them, and then eventually it turned to a mist, then a haze and then, suddenly, it was gone. When he looked back to the men beside his bed, Anders was greeted by pale faces and a fear that stemmed from the unknown and the forbidden.

"Andraste save us," Callum said hoarsely, "Anders what have you done?"

"Not me, my friend," Anders replied, letting out a long breath, "another long before my time. I have simply inherited this power. The only difference?" he said, looking to his left hand and watching the ancient magic there spark, "I can make it work."

Rufus Barnaby. Before Anders had made his foolish pledge to brave Meredith's dungeons, that had been all he had. A name, and an idea of what that name represented. The Band of Three had used code names, ones that tried their best to hide the identities of those mages who had been seduced by the power that the ancient Magisters had built in Kirkwall.

However, it seemed that on closer inspection of the Band of Three's notes and reports, that not all of them had been so keen to learn this power. In fact, Rufus Barnaby, scholar and master of the creation school of magic, had not only dismissed the power but had hoped to stop his colleagues from gaining it. One of the Three had died in an attempt, and the last note Barnaby had left was more of a last will and testament:

We went to the centre of it all. F. is dead and I am alone and injured. I must go back and put an end to it. The maddening thing is there is still no answer. But the Forgotten One, or demon or whatever it is, must be destroyed. I fear one may already be unbound.

I foreswear my oaths. The magister's lore must be burned and the ashes scattered. No good can come of it. And Maker help us if someone does answer what we could not.

The irony was not lost on Anders, now that he knew exactly what had happened at that alter, deep below the streets where nobles walked and merchants hawked their wares.

"Sit down," Anders said to them both, "please."

When Callum opened his mouth, Anders beat him to the punch.

"Please, I will explain."

There was a long silence, in which both men seemed stuck between shouting and staying quiet. Eventually, once the suddenness of their fear seemed to have grown thin, they sat slowly down, as if afraid to make any sudden movements.

"I never told you the real reason that I gave in to Meredith's request, did I?" Anders started; Hawke looked alert, and Callum wary, "in truth part of me wished to…atone. I have done so many things that have caused so much pain, and there is only so long that I can justify it with the pain of my brothers and sisters. Still…that was but a biproduct of something larger. Something far larger than even I understood at first.

"Varric helped me track down a man that I thought might be able to give me some answers."

"Answers for what?" Callum asked seriously.

"Many things," Anders answered as he sorted the bedclothes before rubbing at his nose; the sunlight was calming, yet it stung his eyes, and he pulled one of the bedcurtains across a little further, "I needed to know what had happened to Justice, Vengeance, whatever you would wish to name him as. Such names seem trivial now…still. I needed to know the nature of what I had done in making my pact with my friend, and in all the ways I have changed the nature of the Fade and the Real. I thought that Barnaby might have the answers, considering what happened to the Band of Three."

"But," Callum shook his head, letting out a cynical laugh that was tinged with hysteria, "that's ridiculous. The stories of the Band of Three are legend! They happened over a hundred years ago!"

"I am aware," Anders answered, "and yet when I was in my cell in the Gallows, I heard a knocking. At first I thought it was just some poor wretch asking for water, but it continued. It didn't stop. The more I listened, the more I realised. It was consistent pattern, repeated over and over again. At that point it was all I had, and I thought that anyone able to repeat such a complex pattern over and over had surely been in their cell long enough to memorise it. I thought that if it wasn't Barnaby, then maybe at least they could help me find him."

"But your cell," Hawke said, his face still tight with worry, "how did you get out?"

"Oh, well," Anders said, laughing a little hysterically; he could now at least sympathise with Callum in that, when he thought about it, he realised how truly mad his situation was, "perhaps it's best to show you. Could you hand me that cup?"

At the very least Callum didn't seem wary when handing over the ornate mug, which Anders was grateful for. The last thing he wanted was to be feared. With the mug placed on his lap, Anders pooled the magic once more within his palm. He could feel it stretching out across his fingers, like spindles that he spun from, weaving an intricate pattern of pale blue light around the mug. Once he was done Anders embellished the circular symbol, glyph like in pattern, with a single sigil at its top. It was an odd feeling, as if another were working his fingers, creating a langage he could not yet comprehend.

Then he closed his eyes, held his breath and curled his fingers into a tight fist. There was a sound of fizzing on the air, brief like a fly's wings, and the smell of metallic tang on the air, not unlike lyrium. When he opened his eyes the mug was gone, and to his right Hawke had jumped out of his chair, the mug clattering to the floor.

"Andraste's flaming tits! It fell on my lap! What the Maker blasted black are you doing? What trick is this!?"

"No trick," Anders said as Callum, wide eyed, picked up the mug cautiously; Anders heard the man gasp, "sometimes the object seems to retain some of the magic within itself for a short time. I suppose it flows through it in order to travel."

"I can feel it," Callum said softly, "it's warm. Wait," he frowned, looking to Anders in amazement, "travel where?"

"You asked how I got out of my cell," Anders shrugged, "and Hawke earlier you asked how I got outside into the garden. It's simple…well alright it's not simple, but it's easy to explain," Anders licked his lips and started at them both, a giddy feeling of frenzy clinging to his mind as he said, "I walked through the Fade."

Silence. A bird began singing in the courtyard. Hawke was frowning and Callum hadn't moved nor shown any reaction at all. Then it started, a soft low laughter that seemed to shake Callum's shoulders, then as it grew it moved to his chest, puffing it out as the laughter grew raucous and relieved.

"Ah you mad bastard, you had me going!" Callum almost shouted, "You prick, I should have known you were having me on from the start! For fuck's sake Anders, the least you could do is tell us the truth. We were worried sick while you were gone!"

"A joke? You know I'm starting to think this is all an elaborate dream," Hawke said, looking confused but reassured, "am I dreaming? I suppose anything can happen in a dream. Anders, wait, don't get up you're hurt..!"

And yet neither had the time to stop him as he set the glowing glyph onto the floor to his right, put his feet over the side of the bed and stepped onto it.

The world ceased to be. Then it became something different. A large, ethereal palatial structure, broken and ruined, floating in a white mass like bright sun through too much fog. There was a sound of a woman's voice, light and floating, asking him in something that sounded like elvish, but so far from anything he understood that it was a mystery,

"Viran se lan'aan? Ir annala for ros..."

And then the world was dull again, the smell of the fire rushed back like a gusting wind, the warmth of the air became real, the sound of clattering chairs was loud and abrasive. It was as Anders realised all of this that he also realised he really could not stand without aid. He wobbled on weary legs and bruised and burned feet, before tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs and pain.

"Fuck me!" he heard Callum shouting from another room.

"Anders? Anders, where are you?" he heard Hawke calling, the sound of footsteps coming closer; as Anders looked up he realised where he was. In Hawke's mother's room. It was still as he had seen it last, tended for as if the woman still lived and was expected back at any moment. The fire was roaring, and there were flowers in the vase on Leandra's writing desk. For a moment Anders felt a profound sadness, as if the room itself did not house a dead woman's possessions so much as it housed her bereft son's pain.

"In here," he shouted as he struggled to sit up, "I'm in here."

The door burst open and Hawke rushed in, seeming to hesitate only a second or so before striding to Anders' side and helping him up.

"Tell me," Hawke was babbling, "tell me what happened? Tell me, Anders. Tell me, please, I don't know what's happening. This is mad! None of this makes sense. Father told me no one has walked in the Fade for over a thousand years, no one does, it isn't something that…"

As he was lowered onto the bed, Anders managed to stay sitting upright even though it hurt him greatly to do so. The still healing lash marks on his back itched and pulled, causing lancing agony in the deep wounds. Letting out a soft glow of healing magic took the edge off at least. Hawke was still talking away to himself when Anders looked up, catching the eye of Callum who was standing in the doorway as if terrified to enter.

"It isn't true," was all Callum seemed able to say.

"I thought so to," Anders said wearily, "I suppose I thought a lot of things before all of this. None of them matter now."

"Like fuck they don't," Callum said, the hurt in his voice evident; Hawke stopped talking and blinked, as if coming down from shock, "tell me how you do it. You're tricking us. Maker, are you even Anders at all? What if you're a demon, sent to deceive us!"

"You know that isn't true," Anders sighed, shaking his head, "you know who I am. You know you would feel it if I were a demon."

"And if you were possessed? There are no signs of possession until the demon manifests," Hawke said sternly.

"I should have known you wouldn't understand," Anders shook his head, feeling a little giddy, "Maker, I barely do now. If only Barnaby had been able to tell me, but then perhaps even he did not understand what he had unleashed."

"Then you found him?" Hawke asked, shocked, "He was alive?"

"Alive," Anders said softly, as if to himself, "such a relative term. Yes he was alive, barely. Poor wretch was more a skeleton draped in skin. Truthfully I would have taken him for a wraith or a body raised from the dead. When I stumbled into that cell I remember I fell across his legs and, Maker…" Anders closed his eyes and grimaced, "I felt his skin beneath my arms. It felt like paper, fragile and dry as if he had been buried and left to rot.

"Until now I was only able to create short pathways, using the same paths that spirits use to cross the Fade. That was all the book was able to teach me."

"Book?" Callum asked, frowning.

"The Fjandi," Anders admitted, "I was able to translate enough. There were explanations of how spirits can travel between realms."

"Then you mean demons!" Callum flared, "This is how you fool us? With demon magic? Maker, tell me this is lies Anders!"

"Not lies. Lies, truths, demons, spirits. None of it matters, don't you understand? Barnaby, he showed me. He showed me what they found!"

"What in Thedas could he have told you to have you spouting such nonsense?" Hawke asked.

"He didn't tell me anything," Anders said acidly, "because he had no tongue. Just a gaping mouth, a maw. When he took my head in his hands I felt as if he knew me, had been waiting for me! And I knew then that I had been sent to find him, I was meant to learn this magic. When I awoke from my death and I could not speak, could I? Do you think that was a coincidence? No! I was being given a sign, I was being shown the way forwards!"

"Shut up! Just shut your mouth!" Callum shouted in return, "This is madness!"

"Anders please," Hawke pleaded, "you're not well. You've been though a lot, you just need some rest and…"

"Been through a lot?" Anders spat, silencing them both, "Been through a lot. Do you mean the fracture in my arm and the broken fingers on my hand that I can feel grinding whenever I move? The lashes on my back that cut into the muscle? The burns on my skin where they dripped the oil and then set it alight? The fists that marred my skin and the relentless, cruel words that were shed across me. The humiliation and the pain that came from those who knew no better, and this is how I am treated by those I trust? They tortured me until I begged them to kill me," Anders gasped out, feeling breathless, "but they wouldn't. They wouldn't."

"Please, love," Hawke said, his face falling as he quickly sat next to the shaking mage, pulling Anders into his arms, "you're safe now."

"None of us are safe," Anders sobbed, "don't either of you understand?"

"You can't trust him, Hawke!" Callum shouted, moving forwards, "What if..?"

"Not another step," Hawke said, his tone deadly and cold.

"Are you insane? After everything he's told you? If it's true…Maker if it's true then he's perverting the ways that mages have held sacred since the first Blight! You know what this means!"

"I know that Anders needs rest, time to heal. You believe whatever you want Crummock, I need to help him."

"You saw it with your own eyes!" Callum yelled.

"I don't know what I saw!" Hawke shouted back, "Now if you aren't going to help me, then you can get out of this room right now. And if you make another threat against Anders you can get out of this fucking house. No, this city," Anders hadn't heard Hawke so dangerous since Alesis; he curled closer and felt Hawke's arm tighten around him, "do I make myself clear?"

Silence, but for the sounds of distress Anders was unable to stop. He felt Hawke's kiss against his temple, a hushed reassurance at his ear.

He did not look up to see if Callum heeded Hawke's words. Behind his closed eyelids all Anders could see were the glowing lines of connection, creating a patchwork of magic across Kirkwall that could spell doom for all of its inhabitants were the knowledge to fall into the wrong hands. And, as far as he knew, there was no way to tell whether or not Meredith too had gained that knowledge.

Or, in truth, whether it was Meredith they truly needed to fear anymore.