Chapter 76

Dragon 9:37 Nublis/Drakonis Highever

Alistair never knew what had become of the die set confiscated by the Grey Wardens more than two years ago now. It didn't matter, he was King, he was free he'd purchased a new set, very fine, just a few days ago in Highever's spring market. One of the stalls had on display several sets of die in different materials, wood, glass and stone that had immediately attracted his attention. He picked up a few holding them in his hand weighing them up finally settling on a white set that made a pleasing clack when the cubes were shaken together. "What are they made of?" He'd asked the merchant. "Bone?""Fine dentine." Said the merchant scratching his chin. He had a large spotted nose and wore a striped robe that hung from his neck in various faded hues of red, green and black.

"What does that mean?"

"Comes from a big animal… Rare."

"It could be just bone covered with some sort of varnish…" Alistair moved them speculatively between his fingers. They were heavy for their size and very smooth to the touch.

"Could be, Ser, but ain't."

"How much?"

The merchant named an exorbitant price. Alistair laughed.

"As I said," He commented sourly, "They's is rare…" And held out his hand for Alistair to return them.

Alistair offered half the named price. The merchant sighed and raised his eyes to heaven. "You Fereldans…"

"I'm sure you didn't come all this way not to make a sale and insult your prospective clients…"

The merchant didn't reply but turned his bloodshot eyes to gaze drearily at the people thronging the market. In the end they split the difference and the merchant threw in a hair comb made from the same 'fine dentine' for Cosy.

On another stall Alistair bought a doll with a porcelain head and a sweet painted face for his Niamh. Bregeth had scowled at that, he'd attempted to buy something for her too but she had resisted.

Today he cupped the die in his hand and tossed them upon the hard wooden table. Sighed. A mediocre cast. Picked them up again…

Cosy had left any decisions made about the revered mother who had attempted to stab her up to him. Lily was clearly insane in the most unhappy way, she seemed to be in an almost constant state of panic and fearfulness. Someone had pointed out to him, Oswyn maybe? That if her insanity had clouded her knowledge of right or wrong this should be taken into account.

Alistair was not sure it was her judgement of right and wrong that was impaired but her fortitude. To put it bluntly she no longer had any. He had insisted on taking her to Denerim and therefore much as he may have wished to avoid her presence he was a witness to her almost constant keening, whimpering and weeping on the journey, she hardly slept at all. She was as frail as a spider web in the wind. If she was indeed the same Lily who had attempted to assist Neriya's erstwhile friend Jowan in his escape from the tower several years' ago, then at one point she must have had some pluck, some spirit. All that had been scoured out of her, what was left was a ruin of a young woman with a hollow husk of a personality.

Once in Denerim he'd asked Helena to pay her a visit. He hadn't had the heart to send Lily to Fort Drakon so he had sequestered her in a property in the city with one guard. The young mage had returned the next day with a quizzical look on her round face.

"Aeonar?" She'd asked.

"That's her story…" He'd replied.

Helena had tilted her head to one side. "Does it not resemble something more familiar?"

"You tell me…" He suspected he knew very well what she meant but he wanted to hear her unbiased view so he had to avoid giving her any hints.

Helena licked her lips, "Looks like lyrium withdrawal to me, Sire." She said eventually.

"She's a revered mother, I checked, what does a revered mother…"

"Sire, why should what she apparently is be more relevant that what actually ails her?"

Somehow most mages seemed to have self-confidence on tap as if it were inculcated into them at the Tower at the same time as spell-casting. Perhaps it was. Anyway, he envied them. "So you think she's ailing, Helena?"

"Yes." There was an expression of utmost sincerity on Helena's round face.

"Suffering?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Would this have affected what she did?"

"Sire—"

"Please explain."

"You want me answer a simple question with a simple answer, but… This is no simple matter. When I spoke with her started obsessing about Aeonar so in the end, after I had provided her with a calming draught, I asked her where it was…"

"And what did she reply?"

"It was like a riddle… She said it was everywhere and anywhere…"

Alistair shrugged.

Helena lowered her voice, "And then she said it was inside her."

"Inside her?" He glanced at the healer, this was interesting. Even as King he had no indication as to Aeonar's physical location any more than he did as an apprentice Templar. Perhaps there was a reason for that.

"Yes. Her precise words were: 'Aeonar is in my blood now and I will carry it with me wherever I go, especially in my dreams…'" Helena paused. "I think on a certain level she comprehends what was done to her."

"What would you mean?" He said frowning a little.

"Sire, they fed her lyrium, maybe other things as well… Either she was unaware of this, at least initially, or it was forced on her. Perhaps both in due course. I would also say she was living in fear for a considerable amount of time."

"She looks in a bad state to me…" Alistair admitted reluctantly.

"I believe she's permanently impaired. I can give her potions to calm her down and help her sleep, keep her on an even keel and to help her over the worst of it but I doubt she will ever be the person she was before… To answer your previous question, Sire … You must have seen more than your fair share of people in the final stages of lyrium addiction, as have I." The young healer added.

Alistair nodded grimly.

"Would you say they had free choice or all their faculties?"

He hesitated. "Not really… No."

"Well then…"

"What do I do with her, Helena?" He was almost pleading.

Helena lowered her head, "Sire, I am just a mage…"

How Alistair wished he could bow out of things in just that way sometimes. Things were so much simpler when they could be solved mainly by taking a sword to them.

But instead here he was: 'Sire this' and 'Sire that' and all the damned responsibility in this corner of Thedas, every difficult decision heaped upon him… Well, him and Anora… But still…

Back in Highever, Alistair who was today wearing a sleeveless black velvet doublet with the two Mabaris embroidered in red on the upper left hand side over a blouson with flared sleeves decorated with thin vertical lines in black and silver, flexed his shoulders as he collected the die simply recalling that thought. Black was not a colour he usually favoured but the occasion demanded some sobriety, he thought.

He'd solved the problem in the end, he'd thought of writing to Mage Vallet for her advice but as soon as he'd started thinking through what he should tell her, the answer was staring him in the face.

A few days after Mother Boann had approached him asking after Cosy and Lily's wellbeing. It didn't take much imagination to put two and two together. Now she had an assistant to help her every day, plus a guard popping a few times a week to check everything was all right.

Aeonar dwells inside Lily and the taint inside me, who is the most fortunate? And why do we always pay so dearly for what we do for love?

He needed to set those kinds of negative thoughts aside, especially now. Truthful though they may be but they weren't either productive or helpful. Look to the future, Alistair…

The tug of war with the Divine continued but every day that passed seemed to find both sides more willing to accept an uneasy stalemate, at least for the time being.

Alistair cast the die again. Better this time. Far better.

The first day celebrations had actually been held on first day this year and seemed to be significantly merrier than those of the preceding year. Of course, as regards Cosy's condition he'd had to be especially tactful and diplomatic with Anora but his wife had come around in the end. It was a question of deploying the utmost respect and affection whilst pointing out to each woman that she had her own talents and ambitions and that there was no overlap between their different spheres of power.

As a child he'd once seen a juggler in Redcliffe's main square tossing silver coloured skittles high in the blue sky at the same time as he walked warily over a wire strung between two posts. That was almost exactly what it was like.

He'd worn green, Cosy grey velvet slashed with silver satin and Anora blue silk. He'd taken care to dance with each of them the same amount of times and to keep them both amused. Of course tongues were wagging all around them, but who cared, he was a King's bastard, a mage's get, a half breed even (although most did not know about those two last, fortunately), and tongues had wagged around him all his life.

He'd gotten used to it… Hardened.

As for Cosy and Anora, they were tough girls themselves, accustomed to being the centre of attention, both for good and ill and bore it with grace displaying the most exquisite courtesy towards each other in public. He would rather make a clean breast of it; get it all out in the open. It would be healthier for everyone concerned, he thought.

"They'd scratch each other's eyes out if they could…" Fergus had warned him dourly looking at the two apparently exchanging pleasantries on the other side of the Great Hall, but then Fergus was always seeking to make trouble so Alistair very politely ignored him, rolled his eyes at Oswyn who was loitering nearby, took another sip of his drink and finalised the arrangements with the Teyrn for both him, Bregeth and Niamh to be at Highever at the critical time.

And here they were, the critical time was growing ever nearer, a matter of days, in fact.

But first there were other things to do, a cleansing of sorts… He wondered how much longer he'd be waiting…

Three throws later and he heard voices outside the door. He stood and scooped the die up in his hand hiding them in a pocket in his breeches.

The door creaked open and a gangly youth who seemed to be only in his late teens with unruly shoulder-length brown hair wearing a mages robes came through clutching a tall pile of books documents with some writing materials precariously balanced on top.

The young man was followed by someone else so tiny that only the top of their red-haired head was visible above the table between them.

The youth seemed relieved to put his stuff on the table his rather prominent Adam's apple bobbed nervously, then he glanced at Alistair bowed his head briefly and removing a thick tome from the pile, turned immediately to the seat next to him and to his companion. Alistair acknowledged the bow with a faint smile and remained standing at ease with hands clasped behind his back.

There was a thud and a young female red-headed dwarf took the seat next to the youth "I do hope you'll forgive me for not bowing or… Curtseying. We… Connor and I regret keeping Your Majesty waiting. I trust you will find it in your graciousness to forgive us… Our journey here was not as easy as it might have been."

Alistair smiled kindly at her. "Dagna… It's been a long time. I understand you've made quite an impression in the Circle…"

"Ah… Well that's probably because everybody in the Circle and by that I mean…" Dagna was wearing a long blue robe, clearly the wrong colour to be confused with a mages robe but of the same cut and fashion. She fussed about it arranging it on the chair. "all three hundred and twenty-seven mages, the one hundred and ten mage apprentices plus the seventy-one sundry staff, the six hundred and eighty one Templars, the…"

Connor touched her gently on the arm, Dagna jumped, hesitated for a moment and then said, "I'm gabbling, your Majesty, please…Well, anyway, in summary, it's because everyone is so nice to me there."

"You can call me Alistair, Dagna, we've known each other long enough… And you too, Connor, we're family, really, after all…" He said focussing for a moment on the youth, "But anyway, nice though they may be, I'm certain that isn't the full story… What do you think, Connor?"

Connor blinked rapidly a few times, glanced at Dagna, turned to Alistair took a breath and said, "Your— Alistair, I think Mistress Dagna here has made an invaluable contribution to the Circle's overall knowledge in Ferelden, thanks mainly to her innovative perspective on magic and its practitioners, and her systematic approach to…"

Dagna snorted, "I think that's a polite way of saying I'm a dwarf…"

"Mistress Dagna…" Said Connor, "We've discussed this, it really isn't… You know how much I admire you and the other day, why even Chief Enchanter Irving said…"

Dagna propped her chin on one hand and let the fingers of the other drum on the table, her eyes glazing over. Observing this, Connor stopped in mid flow and rolled his own eyes at Alistair as if to say "What is the point?"

Alistair sat down opposite them, turned to one side, laced his fingers, and extended his legs crossing them at the ankle. "I understand you've been to Trevinter, Connor, what was that like?"

Connor's demeanour changed noticeably. He sat up a little straighter. "Well, you see…"

"Mage Guerrin came back from Trevinter with six diaries full of handwritten notes. He is currently meant to be condensing this content into some form of coherent narrative or commentary, unfortunately, I have seen little evidence of that…" Interjected Dagna.

From this exchange it became clear to Alistair that although Dagna's tendency to gush and her enthusiasm seemed to remain undimmed, part of her personality had matured, and she had acquired an air of seriousness that had not been apparent before. Little wonder, he thought, as he knew from experience if you dealt with mages daily, it was either assert yourself or let them overcome you.

"Dagna," hissed Connor, as if he had forgotten Alistair were there and could hear him, "I've told you, it's…" He cleared his throat and turned to address Alistair directly. "It's difficult, Alistair, very complicated, everything there was so… Different… I… My mother…"

Alistair held up a hand. "I understand." He did in a way. Of course he could not discern the actual events which lay behind this reticence, but Connor was blushing and blinking and looked terribly discomforted, possibly even ashamed… You and me both…

"Alistair, mage Guerrin, I think we need to make some progress here… I understand you have some other pending concerns, Alistair, and I'm sure you want to get this out of the way as soon as possible…"

Connor removed several quills from a wooden box and began to pare the ends carefully with a small knife.

"I do actually."

Dagna nodded in response and pulled out something from a pocket in her left sleeve, she unfolded it gently and placed it on her nose. "Forgive me Alistair…"

"Mistress Dagna has read so much it has affected her eyesight and she requires a corrective…" Explained Connor looking up from the quills.

"The harsh light here on the surface and Mages' dreadful handwriting don't help" Dagna added. "But mage Guerrin's is not, in truth, quite so bad…"

Connor flashed a quick smile at Alistair.

"Connor?" Asked Dagna, the young mage extracted some parchments from the pile of materials which he flattened on the table before him and a clay inkwell which he uncapped, "Ready Mistress." He chirped dipping a quill in the ink.

They began.

Alistair explained how Neriya and he had first met Morrigan and then how they had both woken up in Flemeth's abode following Ostagar. Connor's quill flew across the parchment with the scratching sounds of birds' claws on dried branches or mice running behind wainscoting and Dagna cleared her throat.

"Yes?" Alistair asked.

"So one moment you were both at the top of the Tower of Ishael and the next thing you knew you woke up in this woman Flemeth's hut in the Kocari Wilds?"

"That is correct…" He replied. "I woke before Neriya… She was more seriously injured… I think one or both of them healed her as they had me. For that much, I am still grateful. But… I was… Traumatized by what they told me had happened. Morrigan was chillingly detached when she told me about the rout and its aftermath. Liked her even less after that. The old lady seemed… Addled. She would say the strangest things…"

"How many days had passed?"

Alistair frowned. "I don't well know… and I have no real way of knowing, even now. They told me it was three for me. Neriya was under two days more."

"And how did they explain rescuing you both from the Tower?"

"Morrigan told Neriya in frivolous tones that her mother had changed into an eagle and plucked us from its summit… She then went on to say, apparently, that she didn't understand why her mother had chosen to save us… That if it were up to her she would have saved Cai—, the king, I mean."

Dagna and Connor exchanged a long look.

"So we have healing, transformation and precognition all in one package." Mused Dagna.

"I understand that is not common."

"No it isn't." Said Connor.

"Skin or shape changing, transformation, transfiguration, alteration or metamorphosis at will, call it what you wish, in itself is one of the rarest forms of magic. Why, in the tower we currently have only two mages with this facility. Well, one to be precise, the other is still an infant. As for the circles outside Ferelden but excluding Trevinter…" Dagna's eyes behind her lenses went slightly unfocused she appeared to be counting. "There are barely a handful altogether and that has always been the case, insofar as I know."

"There could be several reasons for that." Added Connor.

"Firstly, because, as of itself, it is rare…"

"Secondly, because it is difficult to apprehend such mages." Connor supplemented, Dagna nodded in assent.

"Thirdly— it is a form of magic, much like blood magic, that is inherently inimical to Chantry doctrine—" Dagna explained.

"And to most popular superstitions. Meaning that its practitioners, if apprehended alive, are more likely to be slain on the spot rather than taken to the Circle…"

"Fifthly, it seems to be inherited, goes in bloodlines, not learned, it cannot be acquired or if it can, only with exceeding difficulty." Said Dagna.

"It may well be that you are either born with it or you are not, is what Mistress Dagna means. Would you say there is a sixthly?" Connor asked her.

Dagna shrugged, "If there is it would be that it is difficult to keep such mages in confinement against their will. And they do not tend to be particularly talkative, either."

Alistair looked at them both, "Morrigan could…" he said.

"Morrigan?" Asked Connor.

"Could change her form. I saw her do so several times… But… It was not anything she ever cared to discuss."

"She was evasive about it?"

"Oh definitely."

"That is the usual way with such mages. Please list the forms you saw her take…" Suggested Dagna.

"Spider that was the most common one. Appropriately." Alistair just could not resist the temptation to add the word, "Bear, and uh… a swarm, don't know whether it was flies or bees or what… I hated that one. Kept well away."

"No eagles?" Asked Connor.

"Not that I saw. Not that I heard from any of the others…"

"Dragon?"

"A Dragon? Is that even possible, Dagna?" Dagna nodded silently. "Certainly not. No."

Alistair went on to give a very brief summing up of most of their campaign against the Blight and explained how Neriya had handed Morrigan the Grimoire that they had found in Irving's chambers in the Tower.

"So she requested your assistance in killing this Flemeth?"

"That is the case, yes, according to her interpretation of the Grimoire she was nothing but a vessel that Flemeth was readying to later take over so she wanted us to kill her mother for her."

"How did Morrigan say Flemeth would do that? I mean take her… body." Dagna asked.

"She didn't explain."

"I see, and, in any event, you refused?"

"We did, yes. Neriya and I were in agreement on this, insofar as we could see Flemeth had assisted us… Furthermore we had a Blight to quell… We couldn't go charging off cutting old ladies' throats at someone's say so, even if we liked and believed Morrigan, which we didn't… It was out of our way and we had bigger, more important things to do."

"And Morrigan took this how?"

"Badly of course… She was extremely unpleasant telling us we had let her down that we were no friends of hers… Neriya might have been somewhat put out by the histrionics but as far as I was concerned… Pah! Really, I couldn't care less…" Alistair shrugged, "She wanted some dirty work done, she should jolly well do it herself."

"So you never got hold of this Grimoire Morrigan said Flemeth had in her possession, the one that she said was the real one?"

"That's right, Connor. Never so much as set eyes on the ruddy thing, if it even existed… Good riddance, too…"

Then he got to the eve of the final in Radcliffe before the final push to relieve Denerim and summarized what Riordan had told them.

There was silence for a while. Alistair suddenly missed his die, wished he could have something to do with his hands. He clasped them behind the back of his head and waited for their questions.

"So you were told that whomever slayed the Archdemon would perish in turn?" Dagna asked cautiously.

"Yes."

"That is… Is not known outside of the Grey Wardens is it?"

"I don't think it is generally, no." Said Alistair looking at Connor, lowering his eyebrows. "I would ask you both to keep it that way…" They nodded.

"Of course." Dagna said firmly.

"How did you react?"

"I, well… I was very still that I recall. As Riordan continued speaking Neriya slipped her hand into mine. Neither of us really heard much more of what he had to say… By the time he'd sent us to our rooms to 'rest', he said, she was gripping my hand so hard her knuckles were white. I think we were both shaking by then, too. You have to understand, we were very young, we'd been through a lot already. This was… Unexpected. If we'd know from the beginning we might have been more resigned to it…"

"You don't need to justify anything, Alistair." Connor said really quickly. "We understand, we do… Don't we?" He said looking at Dagna.

"Of course we do." Dagna replied, for a moment Alistair thought he caught an expression of extreme dismay on her face, but she appeared to gather herself quickly. "My admiration for those of your order has suddenly increased… Exponentially" She added. "Many of my people… It is much the same with the Legion."

"Indeed."

"Well then…"

"It was obvious that Neriya… Wanted to be comforted, but at that moment, I really didn't have it in me. I needed to think. Get the buzzing out of my head. Take stock. Perhaps even get a little drunk, though Maker knows on what… She respected that so after giving her a quick kiss I went to my bedroom alone."

He then went on to describe how Neriya had approached him later that evening with Morrigan's proposal. Again there was that awkward silence in the room as both mage and the scholar digested this information. Alistair knew his cheeks were flushed; his hands weren't too steady either.

Dagna cleared her throat. "Incarnation… That is what she proposed metempsychosis…"

"In Trevinter it is dubbed paligenesia." Connor blurted.

Dagna turned brusquely in her seat and glared up at him over the top of her lenses. "You need to draw up those notes, Mage." She said sternly. She turned back to Alistair folding her ruddy squarish hands on the table before her. "It means, transmigration of the soul. It is an extremely old belief founded on the concept that the soul or spirit is distinct from the body or the flesh and can therefore, under certain conditions, travel from one to the other…"

"Transformation magic…"

"Is superficially similar, but not the same, Alistair. The difference being that there is one body that changes and the change is temporary. And there is still some dispute as to whether the transformation actually takes place in a physical sense or is some form of delusion… Metempsychosis, on the other hand, involves a movement of the spirit from one pre-existing carnal form to another, usually on corporeal death… Sometimes in other circumstances. It is what Morrigan seemed to be implying that Flemeth would eventually do to her…"

For a moment he felt as though he was back in the Chantry attempting to digest some abstruse lecture on an obscure theological point. "And what the Grey Wardens believe leads to the destruction of the Archdemon... Its soul is displaced." He said tentatively.

"Exactly."

There was another pause. Connor bent over his parchment scribbling energetically while Dagna gazed at Alistair. "It is on occasions like this that I am very happy that as a dwarf my beliefs are limited to ancestor worship and the Stone." She murmured. Her voice picked up, "So you did this." she said.

Time to come clean. He looked her in the eyes. "I did, yes."

"And when the time came and you slew the Arch—"

"We both survived. Yes. And just to make things crystal clear…" Alistair leaned forward, he put some urgency in his voice. "I delivered the killing blow… I'd almost hoped… I understand Neriya may have told it differently, but it was me. It is all on me."

Connor glanced up from the parchment the quill frozen in his hands. Dagna flinched and moved her gaze to the grain of the wooden table as if its whorls and coruscations could tell her something.

Alistair eventually broke the silence. "Please underline that." He instructed Connor. Connor nodded and scraped the quill over the parchment.

"Tell us what happened that night." Dagna said finally.

"I wrote it down…" Alistair said tentatively, "It's a bit… Well dramatic, but I thought it was the best thing to do given how quickly recollections can fade…"

Dagna nodded.

"I can read it to you…" He retrieved a few pages from his sleeve.

"That would be most kind." Said Dagna.

Alistair cleared his throat and began: "I was determined not to give her the satisfaction of undressing me or seeing me undress so I went early to the room prepared for our assignation, removed my clothes and lay on the bed. I felt a fool and sick to my stomach. I also feared that Neriya and I had been the dupes of some cruel practical joke that played upon both our love and our deepest fears of premature separation. Everything else was a blur that evening in Redcliffe, Neriya and I had been told the end of our quest would almost certainly end in the death of one or both of us; after all we had been through, after… I tried not to give in to self-pity.

"The room was cold and plain, one bed, just one brazier, no help.

"But come she did eventually just after half an hour. Morrigan looked at me from the door and smiled. A cruel smile, spiked with callousness. I said something then to the effect of 'Let's get this over with.'

"Still smiling she shrugged, turned her back to me and disrobed. She then turned to face me naked and swaying her hips approached the bed, that self-satisfied smile still playing on her lips. The Morrigan I thought I had known hardly smiled at all, this one could not stop smirking. It seemed to me that it was the grin of a cat knowing that the mouse it had chased for so long was now definitely cornered."

Alistair looked up from the page. "Sorry got a bit carried away there…"

"I was younger then and far more inexperienced so I did not anticipate how my body would react. I had almost hoped I would not be able to perform, but in my confused state I could not seem to work out which humiliation would be worse, the humiliation of participating in this loathsome act or the more simple humiliation of sexual failure.

"There is a joke I'd heard bandied about in the barracks, it says that a man does not have sufficient blood to keep his head and his genitals working at the same time. As with most jokes there is some truth to that, I think, and I was unable to adequately resolve my feelings or thoughts on the matter in the little time I had available.

"She came to the bed and climbed on me. She put me in her. She handled that part of me as if it were a thing, an object, just there to be used. Clamped her thighs around mine.

"There is a deep feeling of warmth, satisfaction or even relief when one first enters a lover one desires. That was entirely absent here, the room was cold I was cold, she felt cold over and around me. It was as if the whole world had suddenly become suffused with ice and would never be warm again.

"Eyes closed, she began to move. She did this for some time…"

Alistair broke off, "I… Well, as it was happening… It was almost as if I were a spectator to the act rather than taking part in it. As if I refused to acknowledge what was happening. So I watched her ride… Me… but felt nothing… Simply nothing but that cold inside and out."

Neither Dagna nor Connor chose to comment so after a few beats he lowered his eyes to the scroll and continued to read, "Then she leaned forward and placed her hands on my chest to assist her balance."

Alistair gestured, "Two point of ice, here and here." And then, after a brief pause, he continued.

"This enraged me more than anything else. Anger surged through me. That she should treat me as a buffoon, handle me as if I were a thing, exploit me as a mere seed-bearer, was bad enough, but to also use me as a prop… I imagined sweeping her arms from under her, throwing her off me into the corner of the room, jumping after her and kicking her as she lay prone, taking a grim satisfaction in the dull contact my feet made with her body, until she whimpered and begged me to stop...

"For some reason, perhaps I had stirred under her, she picked this up.

"She stopped moving, her eyes opened, they were more golden now it seemed to me, her lips pouted wetly and she looked down at me, her hair obscuring most of her face as she did so. 'Alistair, I can use this, give me more.'

Alistair cleared his throat, "I was younger then but I realised I had made a mistake. Mages prey on the mind, it is their hunting ground, and the more inclined towards evil they are the more they ransack that estate. The Templars had given me some training in mental discipline and over the last few months I had had many opportunities to develop it in the field, in battle and so I used it here, I refused to look, to imagine, I closed my eyes, I blocked my mind off, attempting to separate it from my body.

"I think it was the right thing to do. I heard her sigh and felt her resume her motion.

"I do not like to think how long we were at this but eventually she moaned, spasmed and was still. My body, as if in thrall to hers, matched this and I came.

"She looked down at me with her gold/green eyes, gravely, almost as if with pity, and then dismounted. She collected her clothes, dressed quickly and left the room without another word.

"That was the last time I ever saw Morrigan, if I were to see her again, Maker assist me, I swear I would strike her dead on the spot."

After a very long moment Alistair looked up from his folios, "That's all I wrote." Connor was still scribbling away but a look of sympathy swept over Dagna's features. Alistair felt a swell of gratitude towards her.

"I wrote this down some time ago but haven't really read it since then, before today. I'm a busy man… and, er, I don't like to think about what happened that night over much… I hope now to put it to rest somewhat. Those were dark days, very dark days."

Dagna nodded.

He arranged the folios neatly, smoothed them out, rolled them up tightly and slipped them back into his sleeve. "These are going on the fire this evening."

Connor looked up from his writing. Alistair folded his hands over each other.

"After that, I left the room, crept down to the kitchen. Kindled a fire from the ashes in the hearth there and heated some water. Took it to the tub used by the servants, found a tablet of soap…

"That tub was probably the same one they used to dunk me in as a child, partly to get me clean and partly as a punishment... I was pretty wild and would get into all kind of scrapes... It seemed so large to me then...

"Now I could hardly fit in it in comfort. My knees were almost against my chin... I'd also picked up a bristle brush from the kitchen and I used it to scrub myself hard anywhere she might have touched me… I remember wishing that I were a child again being scrubbed clean by Cook or one of the maids... Untainted, innocent..."

Why am I boring them with this? He thought suddenly... They are not interested in who I might be or my mawkish self-pitying wishes but what I did. His left hand strayed to the back of his head but he stopped the gesture before it got there...

"Neriya found me eventually still sitting in that tub after about two hours, by then the water was cold and scummy. And yet I still imagined I could smell that bitch on me…

"Helped me get dry. Ushered me up to bed next to her. We didn't talk about it what was left of that night and I don't think either of us slept. When she brought the subject up a few days later I gave her a non-committal reply. But it lay between us…" His voice trailed off.

Another pause.

"I think we've covered the essential points." Dagna summed up breaking the silence. Again she appeared to be looking at him with some compassion, even through those severe eyeglasses of hers. Connor was still stooped over his parchments.

"Well," Alistair said, "that really is all there was to it..."

"When is the... campaign?" Dagna enquired.

"After the event, two months' time, early spring." Alistair replied briskly and leant forward and locked his hands around his knee,

"Good time." Murmured Connor as he was putting the finishing touches to his record.

"I think so," Alistair replied, he was grinning, but it wasn't a grin of happiness more a rictus of pure relief that the ordeal was over. "Can we go through what we agreed again?" He asked looking at Dagna.

"Well yes," She replied folding her lenses and replacing them in the pocket from which she had extracted them, for a moment her eyes blinked vulnerably, "No other copy in Fereldan shall be made. I will encode the document with mage Guerrin's assistance and keep it in my possession. Should anything happen to me Connor here will take charge of it. We shall also ensure that it is translated into dwarven runic and deposited in your Memory in the Shaperate. Then it shall be passed to an envoy of Keeper Lanaya, and the Dalish in turn will incorporate it into their lore using their tongue. After this the original will be returned to you in Denerim for you to dispose of as you see fit..."

"Thank you."

"Thank you, your Majesty, thank you for your trust and frankness. This will give us..." She glanced myopically at Connor, "much to think about and work on... Should we come up with anything..."

"You will be informed immediately," Added Connor collecting his quills and depositing them in the wooden writing box with a hollow clatter, "of course."

"Of course." Agreed Dagna.

"And naturally you're accepting Fergus' hospitality and staying for a further two days before departing for the Tower."

"Correct." Said Dagna, "and should we in that interval have any more questions or doubts..."

"Then, you'll put them to me. I understand." He launched himself to his feet, somehow he felt lighter in himself, refreshed, more at ease than he had for a while, as if he had been involved in an unpleasant but equally unavoidable brawl and now suddenly it were all behind him and he had awoken unscathed.

He paced towards the door behind Dagna and Connor and opened it almost with a flourish.

The first thing he set his eyes on in the anteroom was Cosy who seated in a high backed chair, her hair gathered severely in a knot, her sea green eyes coming alive when she saw him. She immediately set aside her embroidery and attempted to get to her feet.

For a very brief moment Alistair wondered why she was having this difficulty but suddenly all the details of his current stage in life came flooding back to him.

Due to her condition she had taken to wearing gowns lately, this one was deep blue, especially made for her in fine lamb's wool with delicate silver thread detailing round the wide cuffs and décolletage. Shaking his head at his own distractedness he crossed the room towards her in barely three quick strides and, gently supporting her by the arms, helped her stand up.

As she did so the proud swell of her belly rose between them.

His child. Her child. Their child.

A future.

Alistair just about stopped himself from laying a protective hand over it, an intimate gesture best left for their time alone later, he thought. As it was he bent slightly forward and kissed her on the forehead.

But something more seemed to be expected of him, for a moment the small room was brimming with silent anticipation. Lawler met his eyes and was giving him his usual wolfish grin over Cosy's shoulder, behind his back he could feel Dagna and Connor's gaze on him and somehow he knew they all wanted more from him, that they were willing him on.

And then Cosy herself voiced it: "Is that all I'm getting, Alistair Theirin? I have put myself to the trouble of carrying your child around these months past in exchange for nothing but a lukewarm kiss?" She asked with mock tartness.

In reply he took half a step back, tilted his head, narrowed his hazel eyes and gave her a crooked grin.

Magic, he thought.

There was magic in the world every day but it was not what folks usually described as magic involving spells, chanting, mana and mages... Friendship and affection were magic and could redeem even the vilest of lost souls... Love, life and procreation were magic also.

Cosy leaned forward on the balls of her feet and pulled him towards her. Her gloved left hand rested on the nape of his neck, the other authoritatively circling his waist. He submitted gladly, closing his eyes.

As her tongue reached beyond his lips and began exploring his mouth, he fancied he felt their child moving between them.

Magic...

THE END

Author's Note:

This is the first thing of any length I have written.

Sincerest thanks to Addai, Esbatty, Lady De Modred, Naomis, Gaspode, Wayne and others who have helped me with their comments and encouragement. Not forgetting all those reading silently…

Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome and now more than ever. Especially since have a follow-up in mind, working title: The Elven Princess and Other Stories, so I really would like to avoid making all the same mistakes as here, especially when there are always plenty of new ones available…

Clariana