120 réponses à ce sujet

[DreGregoire]

I am totally and absolutely pleased with the tension between Zevran and Xai. I look forward to reading more with baited breath. heh, those two... that's all I have to say. LOL.

[maradeux]

No, I have nothing against the tension. That's very interesting. It reminds me of the situation between Zevran and Master Ignacio. There also was the tension, Zevran could not hide his anger and hate. And so he was defeated. I only hope that the situation between the two men will not remain that way all the time. That would be boring, if always the same wins all of the duels.

[DreGregoire]

Heh, you know Zev will make a comeback. Don't despair *winks* My guess is those two will be going around and around tipping and balancing the scales for sometime to come. Well unless she kills one of them off. Now that would really suck hehe. I might just cry if that happens

[Corker]

maradeux wrote...

Always these cliffhangers! You are so mean! *shakes a fist*

So, what do I think... Yes, it was a good reaction by Xai. But I hope Xai will not outstrip Zevran. I remember Zevran much more ready-witted than he seems to be in the last chapters. I hope he will not always succumb Xai. That would not be fair towards his character.

Xai doesn't always win; Zev didn't attack that Crow Master on sight, after all, and he's declined to walk into a few of the setups Xai has offered.  But Xai wouldn't be a real antagonist (antagonist? rival? not sure) if he wasn't threatening.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

The comparison of Zev's attitude towards Ignacio being similar to how he responds to Xai is pretty much spot on at the moment. But don't worry, I'm not intending for it to stay that way forever...

[maradeux]

Thank you for your answer, Shadow. I am relieved and curious about what will come.

Modifié par maradeux, 10 août 2010 - 01:37 .

[Phoenix Swordsinger]

How exciting! Can't wait for more.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Sorry about the extended delay. >.< I guess I just needed a bit of a break.

Also, with regards to Zev's ready wit being apparently missing in action...I know the feeling. o_O I think it's the dynamics of this current group, such as it is, but things will change soon enough.

Part 8 - Blood Magic and Mind Games

Shianni attacked.

Zevran met her charge, lifting his wooden training weapons to clack against hers, and parried both slashes before skipping quickly to one side as she aimed a kick at his groin.

“Good!” he said, taking a new stance. “Your blades are not the only weapon at your disposal—use them all. Again!”

The two elves paced back and forth across a section of The Royal Sail’s deck, allotted to their use by Captain Meriel, raising a merry din with their imitation blades and shouts. Occasionally a few of the sailors who were lounging along the rail to watch would applaud or cheer when Shianni got a particularly good shot in. At first Zevran had had reservations about the impact spectators would have on the elven woman’s performance, but as time passed he judged it was boosting her confidence—and this was almost as important as skill to his mind.

She had to believe she had the power to defend herself if cornered, or she would risk freezing when threatened.

They had been at sea just shy of four weeks now. For the first two Zevran had taught her simple defence techniques that needed no weapons, like how to escape an offending wrist-grab and which way to twist it to cause maximum pain or incapacitation. It hadn’t been easy for her right away as it had required a certain amount of physical contact, but he had been careful and managed to talk obliging female sailors into assisting with demonstrations when required. As the lessons had progressed and Shianni had discovered that brute strength wasn’t necessarily the only way out of a bad situation, she had become eager to learn more.

“Knowing precisely where to strike, and how, is often more important than a powerful blow to a spot that can absorb the impact,” Zevran had told her. “A strong punch to the stomach may inconvenience your opponent for a few seconds; slapping your hands over both his ears will rupture his hearing and allow you to escape. Always know whether you mean to run away or make a kill; an injured man who can still give chase will likely be an angry man out to make you pay.”

As for the wooden swords, Zevran had found them while rummaging through the Wardens’ armoury looking for something Shianni could arm herself with, and liberated these in the process. After she had gotten the hang of dirty fighting and defending herself without regular weapons, he’d moved her on to sparring. It was much too early to know if she’d ever be particularly good, but she was training hard enough and listening to his instructions with so much dedication that she was on her way to becoming competent—if she remembered what she’d been taught when faced with a real fight. First blood affected different people in different ways, and shooting darkspawn from afar was not the same as knifing someone in the chest, feeling their warm blood leak out across your hands and sensing the last beats of their heart quiver along your blade.

Zevran grunted as a fist got him in the belly, then felt a sharp kick to one of his legs and toppled sideways. Angling his fall to hit the deck without hurting himself, he curled up, clutched his shin and groaned.

“Nice try,” Shianni told him from somewhere above, “but last time you did that and I went to your aid I ended up with one arm twisted behind my back and a knife at my throat. You think I’m stupid enough to fall for that twice in one week?”

Zevran stopped his act, looked up at her and grinned. The stunt Shianni mentioned had also frightened the girl badly at the time, a reaction Zevran had not expected. He’d anticipated outrage at him tricking her, indignation at him laying hands on her, but the response had been nothing but fear. Fortunately, after a bit of a rest and time to think, she had seemed willing to recognise his move as a lesson and it had not eroded her desire to keep training with him.

“You remembered,” he said, pleased, and sat up. “Excellent. I think that is enough fun for now.”

Shianni looked disappointed but put up her training weapons and nodded. “How far away are we from the Imperium, do you think?” she asked. “What’s that big mass of land ahead?”

Zevran got up with another exaggerated groan and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Maker, the way you act sometimes you’d think you were an invalid.”

“If I were, would you tuck me in at night and spoon me my dinner?”

“Keep dreaming, Zevran Arainai. Besides, I think I’d have to fight the captain for the privilege.”

The assassin tried to cover his surprise. He’d managed to charm his way into Meriel’s bed at least five times since boarding The Royal Sail, but at her request he’d been discreet and mentioned their trysts to nobody.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, raising an inquisitive brow and smiling. “Has the good captain mentioned something about me, perchance?”

“She asked me if I had my eye on you,” Shianni said with a grimace. “I said you’re too old for me. Sorry.”

“Too old!” Zevran laughed. “What is this? And even if I was of a more venerable age, matured and piquant like some exquisite wine, what is so bad about having an older lover? I had the pleasure of being acquainted with a mage of enough years to be my grandmother once, and she had the most magnificent pair of—”

“Maker’s Breath!” The girl stared at him. “Do you seriously go around looking at old women’s breasts?”

“If they are beautiful breasts, why not?”

Shianni shuddered. “Urgh. Never mind, I don’t want to think about it. Anyway, I was asking how far away we were.”

Zevran gave her an amused smirk then looked northwest, squinting against the wind and spray. It was getting towards sunset, but the sky was clear and still light enough to see. Almost directly north was a patch of verdant, mountainous land, and directly west was the coast of the Free Marches and, somewhere to the north, the Antivan border.

He pointed to where the land curved into a bay a fair distance ahead. “Those are the shining Antivan waters of Rialto Bay,” he said. “On the west bank is my fair Antiva, and on the east where you can see the mountains is the nation of Rivain. Those islands that are closer to us, you see them, yes? The larger one is called Llomerynn, a thriving den of miscreants. I suspect we are at least a month away from Minrathous—we must circle around Rivain and get past the qunari before reaching the Tevinter Imperium.”

“There are qunari up here?”

“Further north, yes, many qunari.”

He didn’t say that with the war between them and Tevinter, there was a chance their ship might be attacked. The Royal Sail was flying Ferelden colours and might not be harassed, but it was on a course for Minrathous. Captain Meriel had given the impression she was not blind to the possibility, and Zevran had been pleased to hear that the majority of the crew possessed training with weapons, or had been soldiers in the Blight. Anora had actually provided them with a decent chance to reach their destination and fend off boarders. There was even a skilled surgeon on board.

“Did you learn much about Tevinter from that friend of yours?” he asked Shianni.

“Alarith?” She shook her head. “Not really. His family were slaves at the estate of some blood mage. Him, his brother and mother were pretty much house servants, cleaning, cooking and stuff, but his father was something called a blood slave.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Know what that is?”

Zevran turned his back to the rail and lounged against it, then nodded across the deck. “Why not ask our resident Tevinter native?”

Like Zevran and most of the other men on board, Xai wore nothing above his waist in the near-tropical heat. His skin was almost as tanned as the elf’s, perhaps a shade paler after the year spent in Ferelden, but the human’s muscle was more clearly defined, the shoulders a bit broader, the chest a little deeper. There was a dusting of dark hair across his pectorals and a thin trail of it from his navel to the sash of his loose canvas trousers. Unlike Zevran, whose torso was smooth and free of ink, Xai had markings that accentuated his abdominal muscles and hips before vanishing below his waistband in a deliberate and time-honoured tradition of drawing the watcher’s eyes down low, and, with any luck, their thoughts as well.

The human was attractive enough to earn his fair share of glances from the deckhands—there were few children the Crows purchased who didn’t have that element promising superficial beauty, but neither on this ship nor back in Highever had Zevran noticed him returning any interest shown towards himself. He was older than the elven assassin by, Zevran guessed, more than five years but fewer than ten, and there was a small tattoo of seemingly random spidery lines directly over the man’s heart, a Crow symbol Zevran had seen before but didn’t know the meaning of. It was picked out in a very odd, dark blue ink that glittered in certain lights.

Galahan had asked him about that tattoo once, but received no useful response other than a claim it had been received during his training to attain the mantle of a master assassin.

Tattoos and musculature aside, Shianni had started to pay the man more attention of late, particularly after practise bouts when the adrenaline was still running high. It wasn’t the look of a woman looking to bed a man (and despite Zevran’s last-moment oath to Soris he would protect the lass to the best of his abilities, this did not extend to policing who she chose to make love to), but a gauging sort of glance, as though she was sizing him up.

For his part, Xai appeared as indifferent to her attention as he was to anyone else’s. Zevran knew he couldn’t be ignorant of it.

“Blood slave,” Xai said when Shianni called him over, “is a broad term, but most commonly it’s applied to those unfortunates the mages use as a power source. A blood mage can use the life-essence of another living being, willing or no, to replenish or supplement their own energies. Think of blood slaves as walking, talking, self-refilling lyrium potions and you won’t be far off.”

Shianni looked repulsed at the idea. “No wonder the Chantry says blood magic is evil. And Loghain let people like that into Denerim? I can’t believe they put up a statue of the man!”

“That’s hardly the worst blood magic has to offer,” Xai told her with a small shrug. “But since the collapse of the dwarf empire, the schism in the Chantry and the war with the qunari, the Tevinter Imperium has little choice but to rely on such methods for their studies, spells and self-defence.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then allow me to explain.” Xai leaned against the rail beside her, so that she was between him and Zevran. “Lyrium can only be mined by dwarves,” he said, “and as far as I’m aware, trade to the surface only comes from Orzammar in western Ferelden. It’s a highly controlled substance, restricted by the Chantry, but the Chantry that you know in Ferelden and I know in Antiva is different to what’s in Tevinter: the Imperial Chantry.

“Roughly three centuries ago Tevinter disputed on the role of mages in society, saying that they should still be allowed to rule and hold positions of power. A far cry from keeping mages in locked towers under the eyes of Templars, I’m sure you’ll agree. That combined with other doctrinal differences led to Tevinter splitting from the main body of the Chantry and electing their own Divine, and among other things this resulted in a stranglehold on the lyrium trade. Anything that reaches Imperial borders is mostly smuggled and very expensive.”

“Let me guess,” Zevran said. “The lyrium that does reach Tevinter hands is too valuable to waste in simple things such as potions, so they go into crafting runes and wondrous items, yes?”

Xai lifted a brow at this, but responded to the neutral observation in kind. “Correct. Why waste such a thing when blood can fulfil much the same role and is, by and large, a renewable resource?”

“But it’s sick!” Shianni objected.

“The Tevinter Imperium has been at war with the qunari for over two hundred years,” Xai said. “No matter their methods, it is keeping the majority of their people safe. They cannot easily access lyrium, so they use blood slaves.”

“Are you saying that makes it all right?”

“I am merely offering you some perspective, Shianni,” Xai replied calmly. “But like I said, blood magic has far darker applications than merely using another’s energies to enhance one’s own, namely mind control, dream walking and demon summoning.”

“Darker applications?” Zevran couldn’t resist echoing, and he gave a soft snort. “I would have thought mind control an appealing power for you given your predisposition to manipulation, my good friend Xai.”

Xai merely smiled in an amused sort of way. “Such spells are not without weak points. Blood magic, as with any magic, is not impossible to defend against so long as one is prepared for it. It can be detected and dispelled. Non-magical mind games require more finesse.”

“The elves from Denerim,” Shianni said, jumping back into the conversation. “Will they be…turned into blood slaves?”

“Some of them, most definitely,” the Warden concurred, without hesitation or apparent sympathy, and Shianni pushed away from the rail. Her face was livid when she spun to face Xai’s next words.

“The way you described how the Tevinters chose who to be slaves does not feel random to me, Shianni. They selected those with working skills, those who I assume could be resold for a good price, and those with…I suppose you could call it a strong tie to life. Valuable blood slaves have strength, endurance and a will to survive. Those who are too young or weak perish as easily as you or I would toss a ceramic plate against the ground.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know how they decide who these strong-spirited ones are, but I have seen Tevinter mages at the Minrathous slave blocks…they just look at people and know.” Something like a contemptuous sneer twisted his lips. “They get quite excited about it at times.”

The elven girl paled. “Oh Maker…that’s how the shems treated Ciela.”

“Your cousin?” Zevran prompted.

“She pretended she was sick to get inside and find out what was happening and they more than believed her, they were eager for her to enter! And I—”

—convinced her to go, Zevran finished silently, watching guilt and horror chase each other across her features. Perhaps even tried to go with her, but was turned away at the door.

“How do you know so much about blood magic?” he demanded of Xai, deliberately removing the attention from Shianni.

“I’ve assassinated a couple of magisters in my time,” was the smooth response. “I did my research.”

“I’m surprised Tevinters would hire non-mages for something so mundane as killing.”

It was a shot in the dark to assume the contract had been made by mages, but Xai laughed and didn’t dispute the guess.

“Don’t be surprised, Zevran. I told you blood magic has its weaknesses, didn’t I? There was a mage from the city of Vyrantium in Tevinter, a woman named Adralla, who dedicated her life to the study of spells powered by blood. It’s said she found a defence and counter-technique to every trick there was, even to preventing the summoning of demons. As you might imagine, there were some blood mages who weren’t particularly impressed at the prospect of being rendered…ah…impotent.” He grinned. “At least three magisters tried to kill her to prevent her work from becoming read and spread, but she survived each attempt and eventually escaped Tevinter altogether. Though they tried to use blood magic to stalk her through her dreams…of course they could not, because she knew how to keep them out.

“Had they hired a Crow to deal with the issue, perhaps the woman would have died from something other than ripe old age.”

“Do you know any of these defences?” Shianni asked in a subdued voice. “They might be useful if we get into trouble or if…if anyone needs to be protected.”

There was a short silence, the gusting wind causing the ropes overhead to creak, but then Xai lifted one bare shoulder in a half-shrug. “I am as susceptible to blood magic as the next non-mage.” Tilting back his head to smile at the billowing sails, he added, “But one doesn’t need mystical defences to step out of the shadows and slide a blade across a mage’s throat.”

Zevran cocked his head. “That is a rather direct method for a craftmaster, no?”

The Warden’s position against the rail remained relaxed as he chuckled. “It was merely an observation, Zevran.”

No…no it was not. That was reminiscing.

Someone remembers spilling the blood of a blood mage, and remembers it fondly.

Just what is in the Tevinter Imperium that you are after, I wonder?

“Do you think it will come to fighting?” Shianni said then, looking worried.

“That depends on how successful we are in convincing the Circle to sell their new slaves back,” Xai said, “and how insistent we are about collecting them all. Tell me, Shianni…let us say your uncle, cousin or brother’s fiancée are not released. Perhaps the Tevinters deem one of them far too valuable for us to afford. Would you wish to risk a dangerous rescue attempt, or leave them with the magisters?”

“So long as none of the others we’d saved would be endangered, I’d want to try rescuing them,” Shianni said at once. “They’d do the same for me.”

He pointed at her wooden training weapons. “Then my advice is to keep practising.”

Shianni nodded in a very business-like manner. “Right. Come on then. Zevran said he was tired so you can go a round with me.”

Rather than let this goad him to a protest, Zevran smirked, allowed his indolent slouch to become more pronounced, and wiped a theatrical hand across his brow where the sweat had dried quite some time ago. “Oh, so very tired,” he agreed. “Do go on, Xai. She is a most amiable sparring partner and bruises left by a beautiful woman are worth the pain, no?” He nudged his own wooden swords with a bare toe where they lay on the deck. “Come, do not let the dear lady down. I have never known an Antivan Crow who couldn’t rise to the challenge, as it were.”

Xai got up, but didn’t bend to retrieve the weapons. Shianni watched him warily as he stalked across the deck to stand opposite her and put the sun at his back. He didn’t crouch to prepare for any sort of attack or stand side-on to make himself a narrower target, but presented himself squarely to her: tall, human, male, and with an arrogant cast to his face that looked for all the world like…

Zevran’s posture straightened and he glanced sharply towards the elf girl for her reaction. Her brown eyes were uneasy, but she had taken a defensive stance and the fingers around her wooden hilts weren’t shaking.

“There’s only one lesson you truly want from me, knife-ears,” Xai said, and not only was his accent suddenly Ferelden, but his voice had taken on the same disdainful note that echoed Arl Vaughan’s tone. “You want to know if you can face a human man without collapsing into a blithering heap or freezing like a mouse before a serpent. I, well…” He took a step closer, chuckling low, and the sinking sun behind him instantly put Shianni in the dark fall of his shadow. “I’m not so sure you’re ready.” A second confident stride, then a third, and he was almost looming over her. “Do you really think you can take me even once after all the times you were taken?”

When Shianni didn’t move and Xai advanced the remaining distance to stare down upon her, Zevran spoke, assuming his ‘teacher’ voice.

“You see how close he stands, yes? It is intimidating, but lacking wisdom. A man who towers over you so believes he can cow you into submission. But keep your wits about you, my dear. The shorter the distance between you and him, the closer he is to your blades. Too close and there is no way he can evade a sudden attack.”

The stabbing thrust that propelled Shianni’s hand and training blade towards Xai’s stomach would have severely inconvenienced him had the weapon been sharp. Even blunted, the impact tore a graze across his belly and Zevran saw the human’s jaw clench against an outburst of pain.

Shianni didn’t stop with the single stab either, but followed through with her off-hand and a wild yell, swinging up for his face.

This time Xai defended himself. He grabbed her up-surging wrist and took a half-step backwards to widen the gap between them, his stance lowering for balance. Again he stopped and waited, lips curved, eyes calculating.

“Good,” Zevran said as Shianni’s breath hissed between her bared teeth. “And you have not dropped your weapons. Excellent. But you do not need my assistance for this part, surely? We have gone over how to escape a hand that seeks to bind your wrist many a time. Have you forgotten already, my dear?”

Shianni’s eyes flicked to Xai’s restraining hand, then she twisted her arm swift and sharp away from the thumb and against the circle his fingers made, breaking free. She staggered back a step and brought her weapons up again, face pale and eyes blown wide but alight.

Xai saw it too. He pulled back, straightened and displayed his open palms to her. “I believe you have just answered your own question, Shianni,” he said, the Antivan edge returning to his voice, and nodded. “Well done.”

Then, with a small smile and another backwards step, he turned away and headed for the hatch that led below.

Zevran’s attention was pulled back to the girl at the sound of her long, shuddering breath.

“Maker’s Breath, I could really use a drink about now,” she said in an unsteady voice, but she managed a smile.

“Mmm.” Zevran observed her thoughtfully. “There are other way to relax besides imbibing spirits, my dear Shianni, but…this is cause for some celebration, no? Perhaps I could prevail upon the good captain for a jot of rum.” He paused. “You look like you don’t know whether to be pleased with what just happened or terrified.”

Shianni laughed a bit, managing to sound exhausted and exalted at the same time. “Both? You have…no idea, Zevran.” She shook her head but her smile didn’t fade. “You really don’t...”

[LadyKarrakaz]

I loved this chapter, and strangelly, Xai looks more human, what he did was cruel, but I'm sure he knew it would help Shianni in the end. And his past with the Tevinter magisters is really intriguing! I love the interaction between the three of them! Cant' wait to read what will follow!

[maradeux]

Where shall I begin - this chapter is so wonderful!

1. Great idea of Zevran to help Shianni to grow in confidence

2. very interesting thoughts about why the Tevinter mages are usually blood mages and why they "need" slaves

3. I like the interaction between Zev and Xai in this chapter

4. The scene between Xai and Shianni (and Zev as "teacher") was just "wow" - I bow to you

5. Some of your phrases I want to print out and hang them at my wall, because they are so good
-> sensing the last beats of their heart quiver along your blade - eerily beautiful

[Corker]

Seconding Maradeux's #2. That's forehead-slappingly obvious now that you've pointed it out.



Trust Xai to figure out fight practice 'between the ears.' Headology is his specialty, it seems.

[DreGregoire]

hmmmm. Dangit. That chapter got me speculating more. I might have to go kill things to stem off my all consuming impatience for the next chapter. Two thumbs up!

Modifié par DreGregoire, 30 août 2010 - 11:51 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Thanks guys! Tevinter is certainly entertaining on the speculation front. I didn't get to play with magic very much in the last fic, so this is going to be fun.

Oh, and before I forget, big thanks to klarabella who got me speculating on the idea of blood slaves/mana batteries in the first place.


Part 9 - Welcome to Minrathous

Zevran inhaled loudly through his nose and grinned tightly. “Smell that?” he asked Shianni. “The stench of misery.”

The girl had a hand covering her nose. “It smells worse than an open latrine,” she said, her voice muffled.

“That is, indeed, part of the bouquet,” Xai murmured. “The lower slave pens don’t bother much with matters of sanitation.”

“Excrement, blood, rot, various diseases, unwashed flesh and general fear and hopelessness,” Zevran summed up. “If you think it bad now, just imagine walking through it.” He gazed at the slowly approaching port of Minrathous, and added in a softer voice, “Then pray to the Maker you never have to live in it.”

After several tense weeks of sailing through the Northern Passage, the Ventosus Straits and then the Norcen Sea, waters that bore the flotsam of many a battle between Tevinter and qunari forces, The Royal Sail had come within sight of the Imperium’s capital city. Zevran, Shianni and Xai stood at the prow, watching as they sailed nearer.

From a distance, Minrathous was a towering city of beauty. Majestic, glittering spires of fanciful design rose above an urban sprawl that stretched for miles. There were walls, gigantic structures which, according to Xai, encircled what had once been the rich and powerful heart of an empire that had reached all the way to Ostagar in the Korcari Wilds.

But the closer the ship drew to port, the easier it became to see that time and war had swollen the population far beyond the capacity of those walls. What might have been outlying villages had grown, merged into slums and refugee camps, then spread around the land circling Minrathous like a creeping plague of humanity.

The breeze from the west carried the smells of the city docks; specifically where the slave-ships were moored. In Antiva, Zevran had avoided the slave pens as much as possible after his mere two days of captivity in squalor and terror, but here, scenting the rancid smell of stale sweat and waste, combined with the ambient overtones of fear and despair…this was bringing all those unpleasant childhood memories back. The nightmare lacked only sounds: of pronged whips and filth-encrusted chains, of broken sobbing, of once-free people begging for mercy, for their families…

“Was it very bad?” Shianni asked, almost provoking a visible start from his reverie. “Being a slave, that is?”

“I was lucky,” Zevran said. “I only spent two nights in the cages before I was paraded before prospective buyers and the Crows took me in. Had I not been purchased…if fortunate I would have been kept there longer or moved to another city on one of those…pleasant-looking scows over there.” He pointed towards the ugly ships at the slave-side dock.

“Other Antivan cities?”

“Or to the Imperium,” Xai said, almost absently.

Shianni turned to him. “How long were you with the slavers?”

“Three days.”

“What happens if no one buys a slave?”

“Are you certain you wish to know?” Zevran replied, sure she would not enjoy what she heard, but Xai answered.

“Fodder in arenas, entertainment and animal food in menageries, unwilling ****s for the slavers—”

Shianni went white.

“—breeding stock to provide for those who wish to buy babies—”

“Breeding—!”

“—in Antiva, many of the old or sick slaves are donated to various assassin guilds as training dummies,” Xai went on musingly. “Crow apprentices are de-sensitised to murder and bloodshed by being exposed to it often while still children. A worthless slave is pushed to his knees before a youth, a blade is put in your hands, and—”

“Enough! I don’t want to hear any more, all right?”

Xai stopped with his mouth open on the next word, then a second later closed it with an uncharacteristically expressionless look on his face. Ignoring Zevran’s scrutiny, the Warden said only, “As you say.”

But Shianni didn’t seem willing to let it drop that easily. “Do you think it’s funny?”

The former master’s sardonic smile returned. “From a certain perspective it’s hilarious. Did you know there’s more money spent on assassination contracts than paying for a living person from the slave block?”

“How much coin was spent for your life, Xai Merras?” Zevran asked.

“Five gold sovereigns.”

The elf scoffed. He wasn’t going to believe that for one second.

“I’m sorry, Zevran,” Xai said solicitously. “Was I more valuable than you? I didn’t mean to bruise your fragile self-esteem.”

“Most kind of you,” Zevran purred, unfazed. “Perhaps one day you would care to cross blades with me and we will see if those five coins you claim were a worthy investment. But if you are afraid or not up to the challenge, it is no tragedy. I understand.”

“Can you two…men…” Shianni butted in, giving each of them a shove, “stop beating your chests at each other for one minute?” She pointed at Minrathous. “Do we have any idea where to start looking? My people were taken by the Circle of Magi, right?”

“The Circle Tower is in the heart of the city,” Xai said. “Not far from the Grand Cathedral.”

“So how do we get past those huge walls?”

“Captain Meriel assured me we will be docking at a Ferelden-owned port rather than with the slavers,” Zevran said. “I am sure the embassy will be able to arrange contact with the Circle, considering we carry missives from Queen Anora.”

“The Commander was informed of a Grey Warden compound here as well, situated within the walls,” Xai said. “If diplomatic channels don’t work, perhaps some assistance may be had from them.” He paused, then added, “She…granted me the authority to invoke the Right of Conscription, by the way.”

“Meaning?” Zevran asked cautiously.

“Meaning, Zevran, that if there is some slave we particularly wish freed that the mages don’t want to part with, or if you get yourself into so much trouble there’s no other way out…” Xai left it hanging.

“I don’t believe you,” Zevran said in a flat voice, certain Asleena would never have permitted conscription against his will. “But just in case you try it anyway, know that I will slit your throat, Grey Warden or no.”

“But you could recruit any slaves you wanted?” Shianni interrupted. “The mages wouldn’t be able to say no, right?”

“It’s a last resort,” Xai told her. “Don’t get it into your head that we can stride in and conscript a dozen or more elves to the Grey.”

“But you could—”

He shook his head. “I won’t. It would stir ill-will against the Wardens based here.”

“So? It’d save people from lives of slavery at the hands of blood mages!” Shianni protested with some heat.

“I have my orders.”

“Sod your orders!”

“There are some other things the two of you might want to consider before we dock,” Xai said, turning to face them rather than the city. “None of us are mages. You are elves. I am human and a Grey Warden, so I am the best protection you will have here and I suggest you do exactly what I tell you to do. My first piece of advice is this: while in Minrathous, keep your sentiments on slavery and maleficarum to yourself. Affront the wrong person and you’ll find out exactly what it feels like to have your blood boiling in your veins.”

He left the foredeck after that, with Shianni glaring after him.

“I’m ready to start not liking him now,” she muttered.

Although tempted to say I told you so, Zevran said, “As much as I hate to say it, Xai has the right of it. We must tread carefully, you and I. And to some extent…we will have to trust him.”

**

The Royal Sail was towed in to port an hour or so later, and after Captain Meriel presented her official documents to the port authority everyone was given passes, little more than thick pieces of leather with an imprint of Ferelden’s coat of arms overlaid by the sunburst pattern of the Imperial Chantry. These were supposed to prove they were Ferelden citizens authorised to do business in the Tevinter Imperium, and Zevran suspected the protection they afforded would last for as long as it took someone to steal them. The first thing he did was pick a hole in one end of Shianni’s, thread it on a leather thong and politely order her to wear it around her neck and tuck it down the front of her bodice.

“I don’t know how long you plan to be,” the captain said to Zevran before they disembarked, “but we will need a few days at least to resupply. Food and fresh water for whomever you manage to liberate, and possibly medical supplies depending on the state they’re in.”

“Should the elves be sent straight here then?” he asked.

“No, they should go to the embassy first so the paperwork can be sorted out. Besides, I doubt any of them will be in a hurry to board the ship before it’s time to go. I saw the inside of a slave-ship once, and even empty…” She folded her arms against a shiver. “By Andraste, I’ll never forget the smell. I just hope the Sail will be more comfortable for their journey home.

“Be careful out there, Zevran. If I’m not on the ship when you need me someone on board will know where I am.” She flashed a grin. “And if you just find yourself lonely for some company...”

“Ah, my Captain…” Zevran gave her a slow smile and an elegant bow, “shall I take that as…permission to come aboard when I return?”

Meriel only smirked knowingly and returned to her duties, leaving Zevran to navigate the gangplank to where Shianni and Xai waited on the jetty. He relayed the captain’s advice about the elves and the embassy, then said, “I presume we are heading there ourselves first, yes? A decent bath would not go amiss.”

“Maker, yes,” Shianni agreed. “I smell like sweat, tar and sea-salt and my hair is disgusting.”

“We need to go there to arrange passage to the inner city anyway,” Xai said, though his glance from one elf to the other spoke volumes of his suspicion that they were both suddenly, and readily, looking to him for leadership. Zevran grinned as soon as the human’s back was turned.

It felt strange to have unmoving ground beneath his feet again. After two months walking a deck that pitched and swayed with the waves, it was odd to see everything remain so stationary. Zevran had been on ships before, but never for so long a period at one time. It was the furthest he’d ever travelled in his life, he realised. He glanced at Shianni, who was looking ahead with wide-eyed curiosity as they followed Xai to where the pier met solid earth and cobbled road. She had probably never set foot outside Denerim until recently.

The waterfront, or at least this part of it, was nothing spectacular. There were warehouses for cargo and dives for sailors fresh from the sea. Cheap stalls peddling goods of dubious origin were in evidence, and hawkers bearing trays or armloads of the same cheap merchandise called out to the group as they passed, displaying strings of painted glass beads or offering to paint portraits for a small-yet-unspecified fee.

“I’ll have to buy Soris something before we go home,” Shianni commented at one point, and Zevran arched an amused brow.

“Souvenirs? Truly, my dear?” He laughed. “Are we on vacation now?”

“No, you big idiot. But…why not a souvenir or two? I mean…Soris…he really wasn’t happy that I was just leaving home like that with a complete stranger.” The girl eyed a distant trestle table covered with wooden carvings. “I owe him. And he hasn’t had a break in ages, you know?”

“You have me at a loss, I’m afraid.”

“When Vaughan—” Shianni frowned at herself and continued. “The day he turned up in the Alienage was Soris’ wedding day. I said Valora was his fiancée, right? Vaughan and his thugs showed up right when Mother Boann was getting to the vows, and he abducted the entire bridal party. Soris and the other groom, Nelaros, managed to slip inside the Denerim manor with help from a servant, but th-they…”

“You do not have to speak of it,” Zevran said quietly when she faltered. “Concentrate on your brother for now.”

“Vaughan…made Soris watch when Valora was being raped. To show him how ‘real men do it’, he said. Then Soris was thrown into the dungeon until you and the Wardens found him, and when he gets home it’s to find the Tev—” she lowered her voice, “—the Tevinters, plague, the city at war and most of our family missing. And after the Blight he’s had to try and scrape a living while I…keep stirring up trouble.” She tried for a casual shrug and repeated:. “I owe him.”

“You don’t think bringing your family safely home will be enough for him?”

That made her smile come back. “Yeah, but…I want to get something just for him as well. Haven’t you ever given someone a gift to make them feel appreciated?”

Zevran chuckled. “Yes, I…it is a good feeling.”

“To see their face light up and know that, just for that moment, they’re happy?”

Maker’s breath, but it felt like only yesterday when he’d put that apple in Asleena’s hand, led the stallion near and seen the awe-struck look in her eyes when he’d bidden her open them…

“I used to love Name Days and Satinalia,” Shianni went on, her mood brightening in the glow of happy memories. “Do you celebrate those in Antiva?”

“In Antiva, yes, but not so the Antivan Crows.” Zevran grimaced. “Accept a gift from an assassin, my dear, and be prepared to check it quite thoroughly for poison. The ****house was slightly better; on Satinalia the children were given treats. There was a kind of rock candy I remember being particularly fond of, and ahh!” He expelled a long sigh, warming to his subject. “My Antiva has such sweetmeats and breads, I get all wistful just thinking about it.” Glancing around then, with considerably more interest than before, he said, “I wonder what sort of foods they have here in Tevinter? Ferelden knows nothing of fine cuisine—it is all lumpy stews and poorly cooked vegetables.”

“Fine cuisine, huh?” Shianni was grinning. “I’ll have to cook you my famous rabbit stew one day. You’ll eat it and you’ll love it.”

Zevran’s answering smirk was on the sly side. “My dear…are you asking me out to dinner? And offering to cook it?”

“Don’t look at me like that, I—” she broke off suddenly, eyes flicking to something behind him. “Maker’s breath…Taeodor!”

There was a simple stall nearby, a canvas awning over a wooden table laden with rocks and crystals, overseen by a dwarven woman. Also at the stall was a green-robed man with a long tail of black hair and a mage staff, accompanied by two elves in bright vermillion tunics with the Chantry’s golden sunburst on the back.

One of the elves, a tanned young man with tight blond curls, turned at Shianni’s cry, missed some order the mage gave, and was promptly struck across the face for his inattention.

Zevran grabbed Shianni’s wrist as the girl pushed past him. “Let it be,” he hissed. “This is not the place!”

“Let me go!” With a practised twist of her arm that would have had Zevran beaming with teacherly pride in any other situation, Shianni slipped free and dashed across the street yelling, “Leave him alone, shem!”

The mage wheeled to stare at her, then retorted in an accented King’s Tongue: “Shem? Someone needs to teach you your place, elf!”

Even as Zevran ran after Shianni, he saw the mage’s nails dig into his open palm to draw blood. The hand lifted and a red glow suffused it.

Shianni stumbled…then screamed.

One of Zevran’s daggers zipped through the air and sank into the blood mage’s palm, breaking the spell and evoking a shout of pain and a disbelieving cry of, “You dare?”

“The girl did no harm beyond speaking out of turn, my friend,” Zevran said, putting himself in front of Shianni who had collapsed to the road and was gasping for air. Another dagger was balanced between the gloved fingers of the assassin’s right hand, poised to throw. “Your retaliation was unduly harsh, yes? Surely we can let this matter drop and avoid further unpleasantness.”

The mage glared at him and pulled the blade from his palm with a soft hiss of breath. Rather than heal the wound, he clenched his fist so that the blood ran freely and dripped between his fingers. He was hesitating to cast another spell, Zevran could tell…but he looked angry and proud enough that he might just try his luck.

“Magister!” Xai Merras approached and issued a formal bow. “I apologise for the behaviour of my companions. The Grey Wardens and the Kingdom of Ferelden have come to do business with the Imperial Circle of Magi and this is…” he shot a glance at Zevran “…a poor way to begin relations.” He switched to another language, Arcanum probably, and Zevran took the opportunity to check that Shianni was all right.

“I messed up, didn’t I?” she said, voice hoarse and unsteady as she accepted his aid to stand. “I always manage it somehow. Maker, that hurt…”

“I will have to work on teaching you how to be more cautious, I see,” Zevran said. “Calling people names isn’t a good way to get their cooperation, my dear.” He glanced over as Xai came near.

“Magister Ezio is willing to drop a formal charge of assault in exchange for using the blood of any one of us to heal himself,” the Warden said.

“Formal charge?” Shianni echoed in disbelief. “He attacked me!”

“You’re an elf, he’s a mage, and this is the Tevinter Imperium,” Xai said bluntly. “He’s allowed to attack you. Now, unless you want to make things worse, Shianni…Shut. Up.” He locked eyes with Zevran. “After your…brilliant handling of the situation back there, Arainai, I suggest you volunteer yourself.”

“Naturally.” Zevran scowled, and willing as he was to take responsibility for his own actions, being ordered to volunteer simply rubbed him the wrong way. “I would be the last person to expect you to put your life on the line for a comrade. That Grey Warden symbol Asleena gave you is just for show, yes?”

Xai grabbed the elf’s shoulder as he made to pass. “It will hurt,” he said in a low voice, switching to Antivan this time, “and he will not stop until he hears you cry out in pain. This is not some Crow trial to test your endurance, Zevran, so hold on to your pride at your peril.”

“Your concern is touching, my friend, truly,” Zevran replied in Ferelden, shrugging him off, “but I have never submitted to torture, and I trust you will remember your oath to the Warden Commander and not let it go that far.”

“Torture? No, wait,” Shianni whispered urgently. “Let me. This was my fault, I can’t let you do this!”

“You might not survive a second taste so soon,” Xai said after a single glance at the way she was trembling. “Keep out of it.”

But Zevran smiled at her. “I appreciate the offer, my dear, but I will be fine. You can find a way to thank me later if you wish, yes?”

He approached the waiting mage alone. He was not unduly afraid—like all Crows he’d been conditioned to withstand a certain amount of pain, but other than some brief brushes with blood magic during the Blight which Alistair and Asleena had mostly been able to protect him from with their Templar abilities, he’d never been at the full mercy of a maleficar.

Xai’s warning rang in his ears. Had it been intended so that the human could revel in Zevran’s humiliation and screams, or had it been genuine? Certainly he’d never known the former master to be so…grim. He’d been like that practically since Minrathous came into view.

The magister Ezio regarded him narrowly for a while, then offered Zevran’s dagger back, hilt first.

“So kind,” the elf murmured, cleaning off the residual blood and returning the blade to its sheath. “Thank you.”

Ezio shrugged, flexed his still-bleeding hand and lifted it palm outwards.

“You’re welcome.”

Then the world disappeared in a flash of excruciating pain that seared through every nerve in his body. Zevran could see nothing but crimson-splattered darkness, hear nothing but a shrill buzzing sound, and he had no idea how long it went on before he felt the shock of falling to the ground shudder through his hands and knees.

Consciousness fled as suddenly as a candle flame snuffed by a high wind.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 05 septembre 2010 - 07:34 .

[maradeux]

Oh no! Zev!

And once again I'm stunned by your talent of describing situations and places. 

[Phoenix Swordsinger]

Cliff hanger!!  Oh no, Zev. Shadow, your writing just gets better all the time. If you ever decide to write a novel, I'll definately pick it up.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

I think that's been my longest delay between chapters so far XD

Part 10 - Cages

Zevran regained consciousness and was immediately greeted by an unpleasant throbbing in his skull. Lifting a hand to his brow, he bit back an oath and slitted his eyes open.

“He’s moving!” someone hissed from…somewhere nearby. “Tell Taeodor!”

Taeodor…Taeodor…where had he heard that name recently? Zevran grimaced against another dull ache, lowered his arm and stared with bemusement at the metal bars directly above him and the orange stone ceiling beyond. Had they run out of beds at the Ferelden embassy and tossed him into a dog cage?

A thoughtful inhalation through his nose told him that no, he couldn’t smell dog. He smelled…

“Ser! Ser Zevran!” a voice called, soft but urgent.

Zevran turned his face.

…slaves.

The Antivan sat up so fast his head spun and a vocal curse escaped him.

The stone chamber was large, windowless, lit by candles in wall sconces, and dominated by ten huge cages and four much smaller ones. Nine of the bigger cells were filled with elves, no more than twelve to a cage, gender separated, and the tenth held male humans. There were no children, and only two cages held women. Of the four considerably smaller cells that were lined up against the wall furthest from a set of double doors, the chamber’s only visible exit, Zevran inhabited one and the rest stood empty.

Except for a wooden waste bucket and a blanket, his cell was completely bare.

Taking stock of himself, the assassin mentally added that save for his smallclothes, Zevran too was completely bare.

“Ser, it’s Taeodor from outside! I’m friends with Shianni’s brother Soris!”

The Circle Tower? What in Andraste’s name am I doing here?

The cage was large enough for one to stand. Zevran attempted this and fought a wave of vertigo, leaning unsteadily against the bars. He ran both palms over his face, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment in an attempt to regain some focus, then slid his fingers back into his hair and glanced to the Ferelden elf who was still trying to get his attention.

Like the other slaves he was wearing an undyed cotton tunic that reached almost to his knees. His cage was closest to Zevran’s, maybe two arm-lengths away.

Might as well start with the obvious question, hm?

“What happened?”

“Your master sold you to Magister Ezio,” Taeodor said.

“My mast—?” Zevran scowled. “The human who was with Shianni and me, yes? Grey leather? Short black hair and beard?”

The other elf nodded while three of his fellows clustered nearby to listen in. Two more stood beyond, casting frequent glances towards the distant door. Zevran kept an eye on it himself and continued to feel his way along his tight blond braids.

“When you passed out,” Taeodor said, “Ezio gave the shem an offer—four gold sovereigns if he could take you to the Circle right there and then.”

“And what did the human, Xai, say?” Zevran muttered, fingertips pausing, gripping at the heads of two pins and pulling carefully.

“The human…” Taeodor hesitated. “The human haggled him up to seven sovereigns.” Meeting Zevran’s stare, he mumbled, “Shianni was beside herself. I thought Ezio would set her blood on fire again. Look, what is she doing in the Tevinter Imperium with you? And who exactly are you? What’s going on? I couldn’t understand most of the discussion your human had with the magister, but I caught enough to make it sound like Shianni’s some sort of Ferelden dignitary!”

Zevran rolled two tempered pins into his palm and hunkered down by the lock securing his cell door. It looked a little more complex than he was capable of, and his tools could barely be called picks, but…

Sticking them in and feeling around, he said, “Shianni is an envoy of Queen Anora, come here to reclaim the elves illegally smuggled from the Denerim alienage during the Blight. I am…assisting her.”

“Sure you are,” one of the other elves muttered.

“Never fear.” Zevran forced a chuckle. “The human is a Grey Warden and this is all a part of the plan! I am the man on the inside, as it were.” He flicked another furtive glance at the door and jammed one of the pins in viciously, his frustration mounting. “Tell me what you can of this place. How big, where the exits are…that sort of thing.”

Taeodor began to speak and one of his companions cuffed him. “Are you insane? He could be a plant!”

“You didn’t see what happened outside,” Taeodor retorted. “I told you what he did! He’s not one of their agents!”

“You don’t know that for sure!” The elf glared at Zevran, arms crossing. “He says he knows Shianni, so let him prove it.”

“Well…” Zevran frowned. “She has a brother Soris—”

“Taeodor said that before!”

“An uncle Cyrion and a cousin Ciela—”

“The Tevinters know that, so of course you would.”

The assassin sighed and rocked back on his heels, rubbing his temples again. “Vaughan,” he said after a moment. “On Soris’ wedding day, Vaughan and his men abducted the bridal party, which included Shianni…and threw a party of his own, as it were.”

This made them stare at him in silence. Or avert their gazes and look uneasy.

“Satisfied, my friends?”

“Ciela or Valora could have told—” one ventured, without much conviction, but Taeodor interrupted.

“Get Tor,” he told one of his companions quietly, who nodded and walked back through the cage. Taeodor crouched down, one hand curled around a bar. “We’re one floor below ground level,” he said. “It’s easy enough to find the stairs, just through the door on the other side of the next room and to the right. There’s at least one floor below us and I think there are eight above, but I’m not sure, I’ve never been above the fifth; we’re not allowed. I’ve heard the sixth is where the really valuable blood slaves are kept, amongst other things. For the price Ezio paid, you probably would have ended up there yourself after being screened.”

Zevran’s attempts at jimmying the lock paused as he glanced up. “Screened? This is like…putting a horse through its paces, yes? Admiring its gleaming coat, flowing mane, and so forth?”

“Something like that,” Taeodor said carefully.

“They put you through some magical tests and try to find your limits,” one of the other slaves explained. “Your…breaking point, really. The strong ones are taken upstairs.”

“We hear talk,” another chimed in. “They’re used for the big rituals, all the powerful stuff that would drain us dead in a heartbeat.”

Zevran hrmed. “Did anyone from Ferelden impress these magisters so?”

“Only Ciela Tabris and Valdaran Dasu. We haven’t seen either one of them since.”

“And the rest of you are here?” Zevran asked, looking around.

“No, we’re spread out. There are two more chambers like this one on this floor that I know of.” Taeodor shifted position as an older elf with a dark Rivaini complexion, long greying black hair and a number of swirling tattoos joined them.

“Kamator,” the newcomer introduced himself, and reached an arm through the bars towards Zevran.

“Is shaking hands truly necessary?” Zevran asked dryly. “Under normal circumstances I would not mind, but it will be a literal stretch in our present situation, no?”

“I don’t want to shake your sodding hand, Antivan, I want your lockpicks,” the man muttered. “Hurry it up.”

Zevran pulled the pins from the lock and stretched as far as the bars and his arm would allow so that Kamator could reach them. The Rivaini made an unimpressed sound when he saw what he had to work with, but said, “Be right back,” and pressed through the gathered slaves, presumably towards the door of his own cage.

“What’s escaping going to achieve?” an elf asked. “If Shianni’s here, officially here to get us out, wouldn’t a jailbreak stir up trouble?”

“You are all staying here,” Zevran said, trying to follow the progress of the Rivaini. “I, on the other hand, have places to be.” And possibly a Grey Warden to kill, he added darkly to himself. “The exit is one floor up, I presume? Is it guarded?”

“The doors are always open in my experience, but there are two golems,” Taeodor said. “They’ll try to stop you from leaving if they sense you’re not a mage.”

“They can’t sense you at all if you’re not, though,” the Rivaini elf, Kamator, grunted when he’d hurried over and crouched by Zevran’s door. “So if they don’t see you…”

“Much obliged, ser. That is good to know.” The Crow observed as his lock was fiddled with, and after a moment of silence he smiled when the faint click reached his ears. “Again I am in your debt. Might I interest you in a daring escape?”

The older elf snorted quietly and dropped the hairpins back into Zevran’s palm. “Optimistic one, aren’t y—”

A noise from the heavy door on the other side of the room silenced him, horror congealing his features as his head whipped around. Kamator took a quick step away towards the door of his cage, but it was too late. The heavy doors were creaking open, voices could be heard and there was a loud snapping sound as one of the other slaves shut the cell he’d come from.

Zevran barely paused to think. He pushed his barred door open, grabbed Kamator’s arm and hauled the startled Rivaini into the cage before slamming it shut—with himself on the other side. Ignoring the older elf’s curses, he dove out of view of the new arrivals behind Taeodor’s cage where the bodies of the slaves would temporarily conceal him. Rolling to a crouch and reaching for his assassins’ calm, he cocked his head to listen and waited.

Two colourfully robed women entered the chamber, one young and the other matronly, chattering to each other in Tevinter.

“Mages?” Zevran whispered up at Taeodor and got a silent nod in reply. “I don’t suppose you have a weapon or sharp rock handy? No…no…I didn’t think so.”

So. Two mages, no armour, no weapons. Not the sort of odds Zevran liked to work with. He’d killed a number of people while stark naked, naturally, but a bed or bathtub was usually involved in those situations.

The Crow pressed himself further back, bare hands splaying on the flagstones as the women approached Kamator. When their voices suddenly betrayed confusion he looked up, made a quick decision while they appeared suitably distracted, and breathed a silent prayer. With a hand around the horizontal bar at the top of the cage and a bit of footwork, he slithered over the top of the Taeodor’s cell belly-down before moving as fast as he dared to angle his body for minimal visibility.

A height advantage might not be much, but it was better than nothing.

“What,” the older mage demanded suddenly in the King’s Tongue, “are you doing in there, Kamator? Where’s the Antivan elf Magister Ezio brought in?”

Zevran almost held his breath. The room had gone almost completely silent.

“The Antivan’s gone,” the Rivaini muttered sourly, his eyes on the floor, “as you can clearly see.”

“And you are in his cage why?” The woman waited for a reply, frowned, then said, “Don’t make me resort to other measures to pry the truth out of you.”

Kamator sighed in a resigned sort of way. “I was helping him escape, Alcandre. He managed to get some lockpicks in here because some damn fool didn’t check him as thoroughly as they should have. I helped him out, then he betrayed me”—the elf grabbed the bars of his cell and shook them viciously for emphasis— “by shoving me into the cage when he got out!” He raised his voice suddenly and yelled, “Hear me, you sodding Antivan! When they drag you back here by those girly braids of yours—!”

Zevran awarded the other elf full points for acting talent as he swept into a glorious tirade. It was impressive enough that he gave serious thought to the possibility of attempting to flee to the outer room, but then he glanced over the mages and saw the hilt of a dagger peeking out from above the broad blue sash of the older woman.

He grinned tightly and coiled his muscles, positioning his feet against the bars beneath him.

Perfect.

“How long ago did the Antivan escape?” the mage was trying to yell over the slave’s diatribe, going red in the face from effort. “Kamator!”

The Crow launched himself into the air.

There was a squeal of fright from the younger woman as the older crashed down beneath Zevran’s weight, then a scream as the dagger flashed free and drove into the mage’s throat. The girl ran, tripped and fell heavily when Zevran leaped after her and caught an ankle with blood-smeared fingers, and then the assassin was on top of her with the still-slick blade pressing to her neck, his weight pinning her down, and one finger brushing softly against her lips.

“Shhh…”

The girl went limp but for her trembling, and whimpered at the sound of her companion’s death throes as she bled out behind Zevran. The kill hadn’t been as clean as he’d intended—he hadn’t expected the dagger he now held to be a curved Dalish dar’misu, and that had taken the path of his thrust off-course.

Zevran moved his free hand from the girl’s mouth to one of her wrists and got a secure grip, feeling the pulse hammering under her skin. In such intimate quarters one didn’t need a Templar’s skills to have a mage at one’s mercy. He may have never taken a contract on a blood mage before, but he had dealt with regular casters from time to time.

At any rate, the commotion did not seem to have caught anyone’s attention. Luck was on his side, or so it would appear, but that could vanish at any moment. He was much too exposed here…and in more ways than one.

“Kill her,” one of the human slaves said, breaking the stunned silence. “She’s a Tevinter mage. Kill her while you can.”

The girl sobbed a soft gasp. “No! Please, I can help you!”

“Indeed you can, my dear,” Zevran agreed, smiling down at her. “As you have no doubt noticed, I am little…ah…underdressed.” He felt her stiffen in reflexive fear beneath him, but he had no interest in threatening her from that quarter. “Tell me where I might find my equipment.”

“You’re crazy, knife-ears! She’ll betray you!”

“Will you let me live if I tell you?” she whispered, and he chuckled.

“It wouldn’t hurt your chances.”

He gazed calmly into uncertain green eyes, watched her swallow, then she said, “The next room…one of the cabinets against the wall will have your things. All except…except…”

“Yes?”

“The glowing amber and amethyst r-rings you had on. Alcandre said they were Tevinter artefacts and k-kept them, I told her she shouldn’t but she’s always pinching things before they’re properly catalogued and I’m just an apprentice and she’s wearing them under her gloves, now please…please I’ve told you what you wanted to know!”

The watching slaves had started to mutter amongst themselves, and the growing enthusiasm from a number of them for the spilling of more mage-blood was having a marked effect on the girl at Zevran’s mercy. Tears of terror were flowing freely down her face.

“Close your eyes,” he instructed, half because he wanted to assuage her fear somewhat, and half because her eyes were almost the same shade as Asleena’s and he didn’t want to look into them when he did what he knew he must.

Zevran was not cruel, or he did not consider himself such, but he was imminently practical. This was enemy territory and it would be reckless to leave someone at his back who could raise the alarm or subdue him with a single spell…

…that’s what he told himself. A year ago he wouldn’t have even hesitated.

A year ago…a lifetime ago.

This is no time for going soft and allowing things to get complicated, Zevran. People die.

He sensed relief melt through the slender form beneath his body as he withdrew his weapon.

She didn’t even shudder when he slid the blade with expert precision between her ribs and into her heart.

Ignoring the cheers from some of the slaves and the strangely foreign unclean feeling the kill had left him with, he returned to the body of the older mage and rifled quickly through robes, retrieving first a heavy collection of keys, which he tossed to the caged Rivaini elf, then the Dawn and Dusk rings, which he returned to his own fingers.

“You didn’t say you were an assassin!” Kamator hissed as the Antivan ran quickly on bare and silent feet to the antechamber, dar’misu still in hand.

It looked half storage-room, half office, and true to the apprentice’s word his gear was stowed in a large wooden cabinet. Listening hard for any hint of approaching steps from the closed outer door, an exercise in futility thanks to the noise coming from the prison cells, Zevran hurriedly pulled on his clothes, leathers and weapons harness. The dagger he’d stolen he wiped clean, spared a second to appraise its quality with a professional eye, then sheathed at his hip.

Shouldering his pack, he glanced back to the slave cages room in time to see Kamator returning to his own large cell. The Rivaini caught his eye and gave a little jerk of his chin, as though to say ‘Get out while you can.’

“Not keen to escape, then?” Zevran called, raising a brow.

The other elf snorted, tossing the keys back towards the mage corpses. “Oh, is that what you’re doing? I thought you were trying to get yourself killed!”

Zevran only flashed a tight grin and headed for the door. The rising clamour from the cells for release, compassion, more blood, was mercifully cut off when he slipped out into the corridor and closed the heavy portal behind himself, but he had to take a breath and pause a second for the pitiful voices and rattling of metal bars to stop finding an echo in the vaults of his memories…

Now is not the time for freeing slaves. I…am sorry.

The inattention cost him.

“Going somewhere, knife-ears?”

Zevran’s head whipped around and he jerked away from the voice. A human mage, frowning and arrogant-looking, and two red-garbed slaves with oddly vacant expressions stood a short distance away on his left.

There was blood dripping from one of the mage’s clenched fists.

A slim blade slipped into the assassin’s hand and he snapped his arm forward, sending the gleaming length of steel spinning end over end for the mage’s head. He saw the man’s eyes widen with shock a fraction of a second before his hand made a minute gesture…and one of the slaves lurched sideways into the path of the flying dagger as though dragged by invisible ropes.

The grey-haired elf’s face didn’t even register pain when the blade sank between his blue eyes. As he collapsed and bled across the stone floor, the mage’s hand thrust outwards in a move like a punch and a stone fist slammed squarely into Zevran’s chest, hurling him backwards and knocking him off his feet.

Gasping around bruised ribs and a pounding heart, Zevran sacrificed a second dagger in a deliberately misaimed throw then scrambled to his feet when the mage forced his remaining slave to stand in front of himself.

There was the sound of metal ricocheting off a wall, then of leather boots on stone as the assassin fled for the stairs and the blaze of conjured fire began to paint the corridor in sullen shades of crimson and gold behind him…

[maradeux]

Xai - how dare he sell Zevran as a slave!   Boah, I'm furious! Zevran should really work on his lockpicking skills. (it's time... *g*) Killing the mage - no other way, would have been too dangerous. :-/ And now the next difficult situation for Zevran... I'm curious how it will go on.

Modifié par maradeux, 09 octobre 2010 - 09:32 .

[Corker]

"Four sovereigns? Four sovereigns? Ser, with all due respect, I paid three for him when he was a half-starved stripling. Ten at the very least."

I'm really quite curious to know what the heck Xai was thinking. If 'insider information' was really the goal, this plan seems like a lot of risk for the reward. Makes me wonder...

I like Kamator. He seems to have a good balance between heroics and pragmatism. Nice to see a character who says, "I'll help, but only this far."

Poor apprentice, poor Zevran. :/

Modifié par Corker, 08 octobre 2010 - 03:15 .

[maradeux]

Corker wrote...

I like Kamator. He seems to have a good balance between heroics and pragmatism. Nice to see a character who says, "I'll help, but only this far."

Yes, I forgot to say (was in a hurry again) I like this character and I'm curious if we will see him again.

Modifié par maradeux, 08 octobre 2010 - 07:46 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Thanks!

@mara Yep, Zev needs to work on lockpicking big time. XD Fun fact: my rogue elf could unlock everything in Awakenings with just 1 rank in picking locks.

rofl@Corker, indeed on the haggling.

And Xai definitely has some 'splaining to do...


Part 11 - Slaves

Zevran ducked sideways between two towering shelves of books, threw his weight against the heavy wood and heaved with all his strength. There was a moment of teetering furniture and tomes, then a great rush of things falling into other things like a row of dominoes, coupled with panicked yells and the thud of books tumbling to the floor.

The assassin kept running, his breathing harsh and as quiet as he could manage under the circumstances.

He hadn’t succeeded in getting to the exit. Running up the stairs and taking the first landing had seen him ploughing straight into a delegation of startled and heavily armed dwarfs, accompanied by three mages who had swiftly begun to cast at him when they’d heard the shouting from below.

Unable to break through, the Crow had retreated and climbed higher in search of somewhere to shake off all the attention he was gathering, and breached the famous Minrathous library—although he hadn’t realised this at first. He had seen only marvellous bookcases and towering stacks, and jumped headlong into this vast array of tight corners, hiding places and natural death-traps like a man on fire might leap into a river’s flow.

As an added bonus, the mages had stopped hurling magical fire around—either for fear of burning their precious books or incinerating visitors, it didn’t matter. It was good, if only because the backs of Zevran’s arms and legs were already painfully seared. He could feel the ache of blistered and raw skin, and it was starting to hurt to keep running as the movements tugged at partially melted flesh.

He slowed as he reached the end of a row, feet touching ground more cautiously, tread perfectly silent, breath coming controlled and soft, sullied blades angled as he listened past the sound of his own thundering pulse…

Zevran liked this part of the tower. No more broad stone corridors and staircases that had as much use for concealment as a ****’s clothing, nothing but stacks and shelves and wonderful shadows. A clever assassin could hide here for a very long time, if they wished it.

A male voice shouted something in Tevinter, very near, and he tried to catch a glimpse of the speaker in his peripheral vision without completely leaving the row of books he lurked in. Yes…another blood mage, encased in a shimmering shield that resembled heat-haze, with two red-garbed, vacant-eyed slaves in tow.

The assassin sheathed his sword with a whisper of steel, shifted the dar’misu to his right hand and leaned back into his surroundings, fading into the backdrop of ancient leather-bound books and varnished hardwood. He watched the mage creep cautiously past with his staff at the ready. Dark eyes glanced first down the row Zevran was hidden in, then in the other direction. A woman yelled an inquiry from a few shelves away. Someone answered, further off. Then this mage called a reply.

Zevran pounced, clamping a hand around the man’s mouth, yanking him backwards out of casual view and stabbing repeatedly at the arcane shield while the mage staff rapped with desperate strength against his skull and teeth bit ineffectually into leather gloves. The struggle ended when magic finally failed to deflect metal, and the body sagged in Zevran’s grasp. He grabbed the staff so it wouldn’t clatter, lowering the corpse without a noise before he remembered the blood slaves and glanced up.

The elf and human blinked as expression returned to their faces but did not look around like a pair freshly awakened from the Fade; their eyes went straight to Zevran and the dead mage as though they had seen everything but simply been unable to react. Zevran raised a swift finger in the universal gesture for silence, and whether it was the sight of someone killing a hated Tevinter mage or the spreading patch of blood on the dead man’s robes that did the trick, neither slave made a noise and they both obediently drew closer when the assassin motioned.

“What are they saying?” he whispered when another shout came from somewhere in the library, and someone replied. The slaves looked at each other and shook their heads. One of them whispered a helpless reply in Tevinter.

Zevran repeated himself in Antivan and it was the elf who brightened, despite the circumstances.

“They’re looking for visitors, ser, and hustling them out of the library. They’re going to lock the doors after to try and seal you in, then send in some of their thralls.”

“Their thralls?”

“Blood slaves, ser, but…from upstairs. I hear some of them have been blood-controlled so many times they obey even when the magic’s not on them.”

Zevran quirked a brow. “But I heard the slaves from upstairs were valuable. Why throw them in here with an assassin on the loose?”

Shoulders lifted in a shrug beneath the red tunic while the human glanced nervously behind them as another call sounded. “I don’t know, ser. Maybe…maybe the magisters want to test some new method. But if not, mundane blood is cheaper than mage blood, no?”

A woman’s voice shouted, and the elven slave looked down at the dead mage. “They just called for him, ser…”

Zevran rummaged hastily through voluminous purple robes and liberated the corpse of a potion case, checking it for anything useful and finding only a pair of vials with liquids unknown. He took them anyway, on the basis he could always sell them when he got out.

“One more question then, if I may. Is there any way out of here besides the obvious?”

“I…I don’t know, ser. We’ve only ever used the doors.”

Well, it had been worth a try. He grinned bracingly at them, stood and executed an elegant bow, marred somewhat by a wince when the movement tugged his burned skin. “Thank you, my dear. If you would be so kind, count to five before bringing the mages their fallen brother.”

“You’re just going to leave us here?”

“Oh? Do wish to be lingering when those thralls you mentioned arrive, my dear?”

The elf bit her lip and looked away.

“I am sorry,” Zevran said quietly, the words sounding unfamiliar to his ears even though they were in his native tongue, and he vanished back into the stacks.

**

He shadowed the slaves on their way to one of the doors, burdened as they were by the corpse of their former master, and watched from a safe position as the face of the dead mage was checked, the slaves scrutinised then let out. A pair of mages and a horned qunari in white plate kept watch over the nearby bookcases as everyone leaving the library was inspected and questioned, many of them presenting tokens before being permitted to leave.

Zevran studied the qunari for a moment, wondering if this was one of the thralls. He was carrying an exceptionally large axe and there was the Imperial Chantry’s symbol on the breastplate, though splashed in crimson against the white metal rather than the other slaves’ combination of gold-on-red. There also seemed to be a large tattoo on one side of his bronze-skinned face…or was it a glyph? It was a glowing white pattern, and while it was too far to make out any details to the design, when the qunari’s head turned towards him Zevran could see that the warrior’s eyes, too, were shining white.

He felt a shiver travel down his spine when that glowing gaze remained staring in his direction, and pulled back out of view.

So the mages were sending in overly large muscles to deal with an assassin? Zevran shrugged mentally and crept into the library’s depths. All he had to do was avoid detection until they gave up, not trip into whatever trap they were plotting, then wait for his chance. He was positive that once things returned to normal he could bluff or sneak his way out. They couldn’t keep this magnificent library of theirs closed forever, could they?

Locating a good niche to secrete himself in, he pulled out one of his emergency poultices, soaked a bandage in the stuff and began to tend his burns, gritting his teeth against the pain.

**

Maybe half an hour had passed before he’d heard the echo of doors being shut around the library, and a further hour went by but for the quiet sounds of footsteps echoing in the still air. It was the kind of silence librarians only dreamed about.
Zevran continued to wait, folded into a comfortable position and fallen back to his assassin training of clenching and relaxing muscles to avoid cramps. It felt like ages since the last time it had been necessary to stay so still for so long, but some things you never forgot how to do. He passed the time by quietly going through his poisons, bombs and limited salves for anything useful, then perusing the spines of books on the nearby shelves—although this turned out to be pointless, considering nothing was in a language he could read. He ‘borrowed’ something that looked of Dalish origin anyway, and stowed it in his pack.

At least another hour passed before he glimpsed one of the thralls: a black-haired elven man in white mail carrying a dar’misaan and Dalish shield. Zevran watched carefully as the other elf began to walk past the row of shelves leading to his hiding spot, but the thrall abruptly stopped in his tracks, lifted his head as though sniffing, then turned shining white eyes to look unerringly at Zevran’s place of concealment.

What…? Can he actually smell me?

Zevran knew he stank—he hadn’t bathed since disembarking The Royal Sail, there was blood on him, and he bore the lingering aromas of healing herbs and burnt flesh, but from that far away and with no air movement to carry his scent—

The dark-haired elf remained still for a moment longer, then lifted his head again and shouted a word, which was answered by the sound of distant footsteps becoming rapidly less distant.

Making a decision to strike while the odds were still on his side, Zevran darted out and charged. The thrall saw him coming and readied his shield, curved sword swinging back as he crouched, and the sounds of ringing metal filled the library’s air. Zevran circled the armoured man, feinting back and forth to try and get past his guard, but the elf wasn’t even trying fight back; he kept his shield at the fore and his defence tight, a tactic that would never win any melee but served as a very effective delay.

Zevran quickly saw this, gave up and decided to run for it, putting his trust into speed and a thrown-down shock bomb to temporarily hide him from view. It might have worked too, had not the qunari thrall appeared in the direction he chose to flee. Zevran skidded to a halt as soon as he saw the warrior, cursed and changed course, blood pounding in his ears and the qunari’s shout calling the hunt.

If some magic was helping the thralls track him, which was all his brain could come up with at this point, then hiding wouldn’t work. He had to break out of the containment…back where the mages were. That or try to kill these thralls, followed by anyone else the mages decided to send in…any of whom could be elves Shianni had come to rescue.

This is not going to be pleasant.

Ducking and weaving through a series of shelves, he drew to a quietly panting stop when he thought he had a decent lead on his pursuers and strung a hasty tripwire between the lower shelves of two bookcases before dancing back as the dark-haired elf appeared once more. Zevran backed away in an attempt to taunt the other man closer, played up a show of fatigue, and the elf drew closer for every backwards step, then…

…tripped.

The assassin sprang when the other man fell flat on his face with a crash of arms and armour, sword flashing down for the back of an exposed neck…and then the thrall lay dead, his head rolling gently to one side.

Zevran hurriedly wiped his sword clean before returning it to its sheath, grabbed the abandoned dar’misaan from the floor and whirled when he heard someone—the qunari—approaching from behind.

“One of you lies dead,” Zevran said in Antivan, voice hitching from lack of breath, “and I don’t know about you, but I could go on like this all day!”

The qunari gave no indication he understood or cared, but gave voice to another shattering yell and the Crow once more turned to flee for a more favourable battlefield, but this time there was an elf in the way: a female elf with blonde hair, twin Imperial Edges and flowing white leathers that caused Zevran to feel an actual shiver of racial disgust at viewing, for the distinctive silvery sheen to the armour could only mean it had been made from halla hide.

Like the qunari, her face was marked with a glowing design. Dozens of thin lines encircled her right eye in a pattern that put Zevran in mind of a skeleton leaf, where green flesh had long-since withered away and left only an intricate network of veins.

Judging his chances better against her than a fully-armoured qunari warrior, Zevran pulled a book at random from the shelf beside him and hurled it at the woman’s head before jumping to the attack, hoping a quick disabling thrust or clever feint would allow him to slip past and prepare another trap elsewhere.

She ducked to avoid the book.

Zevran flew at her, lashing out with his stolen sword on the way past to encourage her to stay down.

The Imperial Edges she wielded came up, scissoring against one another to catch Zevran’s blade between their serrated teeth and jerking the assassin off balance as he kept instinctive hold of the hilt.

There was a shrieking sound and a sharp crack as the Edges ripped in opposite directions, tearing Zevran’s sword asunder, and then he was being forced backwards by a flurry of aggressive blows and pressed to defend himself with dagger and broken blade. Stunned, shaken, and fighting for his life all of a sudden, he dared not lower his guard to retreat but fought back for all he was worth, tearing a gash here, suffering one there, until he felt a looming presence behind him and spun in a desperate whirlwind of shattered metal and torn leather.

The heavy flat of the qunari’s axe cracked against Zevran’s skull, and he dropped like a stone.

**

He felt, distantly to be sure, his body rolled onto his stomach and his wrists bound behind him, then his pounding head was wrenched sharply back by the hair as he was straddled and pinned down. A woman’s voice hissed something into his left ear.

“What was…?” Zevran asked groggily. “I don’t…urgh…”

“I said ‘hold still!’” the elven woman snapped in Ferelden. “We’re disarming you. Try anything and you’ll be breathing through your neck.”

Zevran lay quietly for a few brain-throbbing seconds, one side of his face now pressed firmly against the ground, before the hands questing through his armour and divesting him of various sharp-edged implements inclined him to comment on the proceedings.

“You know…the last time a deliciously strong woman had me at her mercy, tied up and so forth, we very nearly ended up making love.”

“Only nearly?”

Zevran grunted as he was flipped over, and clenched his jaw as his hands were ground into the floor and his own injured back by the weight of the woman atop him. He blinked at the sight of her face, for the white glow had vanished from the blue-sheened lines of ink, and her eyes were so curious a shade as to be almost lavender.

“Was this woman blind?” the woman asked, taking the daggers from his belt and tossing them aside with barely a glance. “You’re not bad-looking.”

“Ah, a compliment from such lovely lips—”

“Any more weapons?” she interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“Any more weapons?” the woman repeated patiently. “You were stripped to your smallclothes when you were brought in, or so I was informed, yet you managed to escape, kill one of the lower jailkeepers and her assistant.”

Zevran tried for a grin even while his wrists burned pain beneath him. “Always keep something hidden where people are unwilling to look, that is all I can say.”

“Indeed.” She crossed her arms against his chest as though making herself comfortable, heedless of the blood staining one of them where Zevran had cut her. She tilted her head at him. “So what you’re saying is that you stow lockpicks in your underwear? Or do you keep a weapon down there as well?”

“My dear, is this a trick question? You simply look so serious.”

“I’m sorry.” She smiled. Sweetly. “Do you…have any sort of deadly weapon sheathed in your smallclothes?”

“Naturally I do, but—”

Quick as a flash, one arm reached back and a hand grabbed. Nails dug through cloth and into sensitive flesh, drawing a sharp, pained hiss from between Zevran’s teeth.

Smiling wider, but a great deal less sweetly, the woman leaned down until their lips almost brushed and asked in a silken purr, “Shall I remove it, then?”

“I would prefer…that you did not. I am rather…ah…attached to it, you see, and as I was about to say, my dear lady, that…weapon…is more for loving than fighting, yes?”

There was a brief, agonising second after that remark when he feared she actually intended to carry through with her threat, but she let him go and got off him, turning to say something to the hitherto silent qunari and two more white-garbed thralls who seemed to have arrived while Zevran had been…preoccupied.

The assassin shifted position to alleviate the pain in various parts of his body, then, figuring he had nothing to lose at this point, hazarded a guess. “Ciela Tabris?”

They ignored him.

“Only I’ve come to the Imperium with her cousin Shianni,” Zevran continued, hoping name drops would elicit a response. “Soris is alive and well, if that means anything, rescued from the Arl of Denerim’s own dungeon...”

The blonde gave him a quick, surprised glance, but her lips pressed closed when the qunari approached Zevran in a couple of swift strides, hauled him ungently to his feet and began to frogmarch him through the library.

“I counsel silence from this point onwards, elf,” the giant rumbled above him. “Unless you would prefer to be carried out unconscious.”

**

A babble of Tevinter greeted his ears when the library door was opened. Zevran was fast growing sick of hearing a language he couldn’t understand. There were mages, there were the dwarfs from downstairs arguing with them and each other, and there were slaves trying to keep out of the way but still look like they were attending their masters.

At the sight of the apprehended assassin, several robed individuals rushed into the library at speed as though expecting to find the whole place on fire. Zevran himself was kicked to his knees on the stone floor and left there, the four thralls striding silently around him and to the sides of five magisters standing a little apart from the argument in the corridor. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the four knelt and had their hair caressed like good hounds returned from a successful hunt, but the fifth magistra, who had no thrall before her, spat out a curse and levelled her staff at Zevran’s head.

At this point Zevran gave up his pretence of not watching and tried to throw himself backwards into the library again—it was that or have his face taken off by a fireball—but found himself suddenly lifted up into the air by magic, floating gently…and then the air itself closed around him from all sides, unyielding as stone, grinding bone against creaking bone, organ against collapsing organ so that he was being squeezed, crushed—

The pressure vanished. He landed flat on the floor, gasping for air and trembling with pain, and for some reason all he could think was: Why?

“I was told the Tower was prepared to sell slaves,” a haughty, female and Ferelden voice was stating. “I have decided! I want that one. The Tower wants lyrium, it knows I can deliver, do we have a bargain?”

“You expressed no interest in slaves before now, my lady,” a Tevinter-accented voice protested. “In fact, you said you consider the practise repellent! This elf is obviously dangerous, and was brought in personally by a magister for no less than seven sovereigns!”

“What is that to me?” The woman, an armoured dwarf now that Zevran had uncurled enough to try and catch a glimpse of her, put gauntleted hands to hips and lifted her chin disdainfully. “Lyrium is of more use to the mages than gold, no? Trade me this slave and the Tower will have the funds to buy a hundred more like it.”

“All your lyrium,” the magistra who’d attacked Zevran demanded, her eyes seething with anger. “That elf cost me a valuable servant. It will take months to condition another to such high susceptibility.”

“Half my lyrium,” the dwarf countered, ignoring the appalled protests of her companions. “For one elf in sore need of healing that should more than suffice.”

The magistra glowered at Zevran, but nodded curtly. “So be it.” Without another word, she stalked into the library with a sweep of black silk robes.

“Lovely. Someone do pick up my new purchase, or carry it or whatever. Oh, and for the price I just paid, return the slave’s equipment. That’s mine too now, is it not?”

Swords, daggers and backpack were handed over to a sullen dwarf warrior, while two more helped Zevran off the floor and steadied him, but they didn’t remove the bindings from his wrists.

The dwarf woman dusted her hands briskly and beamed. “Splendid. Shall we be off then?”

Zevran, slightly recovered from his brush with death-by-compaction and somewhat relieved that he seemed to be getting away from the mages, even if it was still as a slave, finally managed to find his voice. “Ah…mistress? I would be able to serve your whims much more effectively if my hands were untied. Also, it would make the stairs easier to navigate.”

“Perhaps,” the dwarf agreed amiably. “But it would be best if the bindings remained while we are still within the Tower. The mages might get all worried, otherwise. Assassins make them aware they are not immortal after all.” She sniffed, then gave Zevran a sidelong smirk. “Besides, I seem to recall the painted elf having a fondness for chains and rope.”

“Painted…?”

Zevran blinked in astonishment, staring down at the woman whom he’d only ever known as a great lumbering golem, then tried to recover with as elegant a bow as he could pull off.

“Well, then! Mistress.” He raised his head, golden eyes gleaming, and smiled at the amused expression before him. “As you desire, yes?”

“Yes,” Shayle agreed, still grinning ear to ear. “On, then.”

Zevran followed, the dwarfs surrounding him like a personal guard and two mages in tow, but he glanced back once where he’d last seen Ciela Tabris and the other thralls. The white-clad slaves were following their masters in the opposite direction. She looked back as well, her eyes finding Zevran’s, her face at once questioning and dismayed, then the stone of the tower walls were between them and Zevran returned to concentrating on making his bruised body walk without stumbling as he followed Shayle downstairs.

Shayle!

Zevran grinned to himself again, feeling light-headed with relief.

He couldn’t wait to talk to her.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 18 octobre 2010 - 08:42 .

[Corker]

Shayle! *cheers*



Nice work on the thralls! Definitely distinctive. I like that we don't get the full story on them (what's up with glowy eyes/not-glowy eyes operating modes?) but for fairly obvious reasons - they have no reason to explain it.

[maradeux]

Impressing chapter. Very exciting first meeting with Ciela. And nice surprise with Shayle.

He couldn’t wait to talk to her.

Same here!

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Urgh, I noticed so many typos in this upon re-reading. I even forgot to put in the linebreaks in FF.Net. That's what happens when you submit stuff after midnight, I guess. >.<



Thanks for commenting, guys! I was really looking forward to getting Shayle in on the action.

[Phoenix Swordsinger]

Shayle! How exciting! Now for Zev to find Xai and smack him around a bit. Can't wait for next chapter.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Part 12 - Flesh and Stone

“So…is this anything like how you looked before you became a golem?” Zevran asked.

“How should I know? If the painted elf has forgotten, I will remind it that my memory is not the best. I had to rely on the Grey Wardens to discover I was once a dwarf, let alone female, so whether or not I had black hair and brown eyes seems a minor detail compared to having all the right bits, no?”

“And what lovely bits they are, if I may be so bold.”

The villa stood in the inner city. They were guest accommodations according to Shayle, guest accommodations that the mages provided to those they wanted to impress or get something out of. It was a magnificent place in Zevran’s opinion, he who approved of fine things and high living when such things could be had, and more sumptuous than any lodgings Ferelden could have offered. The walls were fashioned of a pale gold stone, the many rooms spacious and furnished with expensive creations of honey-coloured wood upholstered in white, and tended at all times by house slaves.

They were in the atrium now, and Zevran lay stomach down on a flat bed with the sunlight warming his bare back and drying his hair as one such slave stitched a wound on his shoulder blade closed. He’d already had his burns dressed and the chance to bathe in the balneum, and while he felt better just for the hot water and soap he privately admitted his head and insides were still aching from the qunari’s axe and that last bit of magic in the Tower. He hoped sleep would remedy this, as he’d had enough of Tevinter mages for one day and Shayle had told him that Wynne was no longer with her, departed for the south some time prior. A pity, that. He might have even foregone complimenting her bosom for a caster he knew he could trust.

Shayle Cadash herself was, as had been noted, a dwarf and a woman. Short black hair was tied back into a simple tail revealing chestnut eyes in a surface-tanned but unbranded face. She even had a light smattering of freckles over her nose. Zevran would not have called her beautiful by his usual standards, but there was something unusually compelling about her he couldn’t put his finger on. Maybe it was knowing what she’d once been, he mused, and recognising the stone that, in some way, still lived beneath the flesh.

But she was pleasingly rounded in all the right places, he had to admit (and admire), and with muscle to her frame that suggested she was fully capable of swinging that giant hammer she was carrying around.

Beauty and strength were always a tantalising combination for the Antivan elf.

Shayle snorted at his last comment and lascivious smile. “It is as bad as the drunken dwarf we once travelled with. Just because I am smaller and squishier than I once was, don’t think for a moment I can’t crush its skull to rid it of unwanted mental images.”

Zevran laughed, causing the servant working on his shoulder to pause for a moment. “As you say, but you are a woman of flesh and blood now, yes? Have you not felt any…womanly urges?”

Shayle’s dark brows lifted. “Does it refer to my newly acquired monthly desire to brutally slaughter everyone in my immediate vicinity?”

“Ah…” Zevran hesitated. “Perhaps another time for that discussion, yes? You have been a dwarf for months now, by that remark? How long has it been since your transformation? Not long enough for you to stop referring to people as ‘it’, I notice.”

“Yes, centuries-old habits die hard, don’t they? I daresay I will grow out of it. Or not. It may depend on how long I live.” Shayle relaxed into her chair, putting her booted feet up on a cushioned stool. “I have been a dwarf for…roughly three months, I think? Before that it was endless tests and trials and talks about how I could be restored—some of these mages never shut their traps. If Wynne hadn’t been there for most of that I would have been tempted to crack skulls together. Not that I wasn’t tempted, mind, but I might have actually tried it.”

“Why did she leave, if I may ask? I would have assumed the two of you to depart together. Or did you tire of each other’s company?”

Shayle shook her head. “No. Wynne became…uncomfortable here after a time. At first she”—and Zevran noted with amusement that Wynne was honoured with a pronoun, just as Asleena was—“said she was enjoying the change in scenery and fresh perspectives. She even took to a group of younger mages. There are two of them wandering around the villa somewhere, keeping an eye on me at her request I suspect.”

“So what happened?”

“Like I said, she became uncomfortable. I think it was a combination of two things: Her condition, that spirit within her, yes? She was concerned that it might be attracting attention from unwanted quarters.”

Zevran nodded. In some circles Wynne might be called an abomination, though the line between spirit and demon was a fuzzy philosophical one he didn’t care to ponder. He knew little of magic, but had seen enough during the Blight to have picked up that spirits (as opposed to demons) involving themselves with mortals was rare, and someone like Wynne who shared a symbiotic bond with one might be viewed as a curiosity or, at the other end of the spectrum, a laboratory experiment to be cut open and fiddled with.

“And the other thing?” he prompted.

“The blood magic,” Shayle said. “As time progressed and other ideas came to naught, the mages became quite sure that I could only be restored to living flesh and flowing blood by magic that could effectively manipulate blood. It made sense to me, even Wynne agreed to the logic of it in the end, but she was…extremely unhappy at the prospect. She detests blood magic, she says it’s vile and wrong, and she said she couldn’t be a party to it.” The dwarven woman looked pensive for a moment as Zevran watched her silently. “She was apologetic about her views, but firm that she could not remain for the ritual. To be honest I am not sure how to take that. Does this mean she will despise me for going through with it? Should I have remained a golem forever?” Before Zevran could decide a suitable reply, a disparaging remark on Wynne’s sense of right and wrong, or change the paths of the conversation into something easier to navigate, Shayle said, “It is not like any of the slaves involved suffered needlessly. They all lived, or so I was assured, and the ritual was successful.”

“What do you mean?” Zevran asked, his ears pricking at the mention of slaves. “What did this ritual entail, precisely?”

“Oh, the usual. Flashy words and bright lights. A magic circle with me standing in the middle doing my famous impression of Honnleath town square statuary.” She snorted. “But if it is amused by such details, I was permitted to select a new body, which is a story in itself, then it and I were taken up to one of the higher levels of the Tower to a wide, circular room with enough candles burning to light a Chantry. There were mages, and blood slaves in white like the ones who caught you in the library.”

“Thralls.”

“Yes. Well, golem and dwarf were in the middle of some magic pattern, the magisters drew power from the thralls’ blood and then…how do I explain it? One moment I was standing up and solid as stone can be, the next I was…breathing. And noticing how cold and stiff I felt. And…” She trailed off, staring up at the daylight streaming into the atrium, and shook her head. “And…any number of things I hadn’t felt in a long time.” She shook herself a bit, then added, “I must say it seemed a much more pleasant experience than going from dwarf to golem.”

The former Crow cocked his head. “You remember that, do you?”

“I…no. Not precisely.” Brown eyes became distant. “I know what the process was, thanks to Asleena, but…remember it? I…just recall there was pain. Agonising pain.”

Zevran decided to steer away from that. Nodding to the slave who had finished stitching him up, he stretched his mended shoulder carefully and said, “What of that golem shell of yours then? Did the mages keep it?”

Shayle scowled. “That thing would be the bane of my existence if it wasn’t for the fact that it was my existence for a goodly stretch of time. No, I still have the shell, but the mages circle it like a flock of carrion birds, constantly inviting me to their Tower in the hopes of cozening me into parting with it. ‘Shayle, do come and dine with us tonight!’ ‘Shayle, we are having a ball! Please accept this dress and join us for the evening.’ Faugh!” She sat up straighter, sparks of irritation practically spitting from her eyes. “I can’t decide what’s worse: that pile of pigeon crap, or my old master’s orders of ‘Golem! Fetch me a lamp!’ At least it never tried to butter me.”

“Butter you?” Light dawned. “Ah. You mean butter you up?”

“What is the difference? Either way it conjures an image of being smothered with a thick yellow paste that originated from the dangling appendages of a cow. Why this is supposed to indicate a method of enticement is beyond me.”

“Perhaps…it is something to do with lubrication?” Zevran suggested delicately.

“Urgh.”

He grinned at her. “But why do they want your former body so badly?” he asked, returning to the topic. “Not that it wasn’t a fine figure of a body, I might add. I certainly wouldn’t mind being hard as a rock every day.”

It was hard to tell whether that went over the dwarf’s head or not, for she gave him a strange look. “The painted elf is not aware of the golem-making process?” When Zevran shrugged to indicate his ignorance, Shayle got to her feet. “Come, then. I will show it why they are so intent on claiming the shell.”

Zevran followed her through a couple of adjoining rooms, still shirtless and inwardly enjoying the covert stares some of the slaves gave him as they passed. Before long he and Shayle were in a practically bare room, its most prominent feature the towering and inert golem that had once been ‘Shale’. Two male dwarves were bustling around it with chisels and hammers, but they left off what they were doing when Shayle entered and stood back respectfully. She introduced them to Zevran, then directed his attention to the large cavity that had been cracked across the golem’s chest.

“There. What does it notice?” she asked.

Zevran narrowed his eyes…then widened them. The grey stone shell had been chipped away to reveal a glowing blue crystal beneath.

“Lyrium!”

“Indeed. Suffice to say the mages want my dusty grey corpse for the shiny blue centre hidden within.”

“So this is what you meant when you bartered for my life with lyrium!” Zevran laughed suddenly. “And here I was thinking you had turned to black market smuggling or some other such shady living.”

“Not in the least. Although some nations consider ripping out the innards of corpses and selling them to be ‘black market’, do they not? Strange parallels abound.”

“Are all golems like this on the inside?”

“Oh yes. It is a part of the process, according to Caridin’s journals. He made the outer shells of stone or steel hollow, so a living dwarf could crawl within. This done, molten lyrium would be poured into the inert golem. It killed the dwarf, naturally, bound its spirit to the golem, and made the shell malleable for refinement on the Anvil of the Void. And the result?” She smiled humourlessly. “Instant immortal slave, so long as the control rod remains intact.”

Zevran’s mirth had vanished and his imagination practically shut down after presenting him with what it might have felt like to be completely engulfed and killed in a flow of white-hot liquid lyrium. He had been subjected to many different methods of torture in his lifetime, physical and psychological, but that was…something else completely. He found himself staring at the silent golem standing against the wall, the beautiful and luminous crystals glowing at heart, open mouth, eye sockets…his mind playing over all the soft and fleshy parts of the body that would have been seared away to nothing, consumed in a moment of pure pain…

“The mages already knew golem shells contain lyrium, of course,” Shayle went on. “They once had many guarding Minrathous, back when the dwarves were willing to sell us—them, I should say, but most of the juggernauts are broken now and have long since been cracked open and scooped out since they cannot be repaired.”

“If this…” Zevran waved a hand at the staring shell, “is bringing so much attention from the mages, attention you do not want, why hold on to it? Even a small amount of lyrium fetches a high price here, no? Greater than diamonds, or so I’m told. You could make quite the killing and live like royalty.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Shayle muttered, a touch of reluctance audible in her voice as her arms folded. “That was my body for centuries. I…I find I am still rather attached to it.”

“But you have parted with some of it for my benefit.”

“Well, as entertaining as it might have been watching Magistra Phaedra crush the painted elf until it popped like an overripe tomato and squirted fluids everywhere, one recalled it was an…adequate travelling companion. Despite it being a ‘crow’ it kept its defecations to itself. Most considerate.”

“Uh…you’re welcome?”

“It was also a friend of the Grey Warden’s,” Shayle continued more enthusiastically. “Did it not leave Denerim in her company? I seem to remember the bard claiming some sort of search for the other Warden who vanished after the Landsmeet. Is that why it is in Minrathous? Is Asleena here too?”

Zevran shook his head. “Alas, no, but if you wish I could share the story of our travels as you have shared yours. It is quite the tale if I do say so myself.”

“Hm.” Shayle looked a little disappointed at this but inclined her head and motioned for him to follow. “Very well. And then it can tell me why it was running amok in the Minrathous Circle Tower. Seeing the mages flap around in a panic like a flock of gaudily coloured parakeets was the most entertainment I’ve had in weeks! Did it kill many of them?”

“Two or three.”

“Really? The painted elf must be losing its touch, surely.”

“I will be better prepared next time,” Zevran said with a lazy smile. “But before then I think I should visit the Grey Wardens Headquarters and the Ferelden Embassy.”

“Oh? I know where both of these places are located.”

“I rather hoped you would. But let’s not announce our impending arrival beforehand, hm?” The assassin’s smile widened like a wolf’s. “There is someone I would very much like to surprise.”