Fortunately, the Templar escort proved to be a one-way sort of arrangement, and Ithilian and Amalia were free to make their way back to the Alienage unaccompanied. Still, they waited until they were well clear of the Gallows to say anything. At this point, Amalia broke the silence with a hypothesis. âShe wants to bring us to heel. If that does not happen, I suspect she would think little of killing us in one of her raids.â Amalia had heard through the Lions that Meredith had already been sending some of her more zealous to actually break down doors in the middle of the night, in plainclothes. It wasnât hard to imagine that she would implement a similar policy in the Alienage, if she felt she had to do so to bring it under her control.
But if they would willingly allow her the power over them she seemed to want, sheâd get the same thing, at lower cost: a weakening of the tight weave of the Alienage community, and consequently a much reduced chance of any future problems out of that part of the city. Amalia pursed her lips. Neither outcome was desirable, but only two had been defined. Admittedly, attempting to fond a workaround would be difficult and possibly not even worthwhile, especially since Meredith was likely to take anything less than full compliance with her terms as resistance all the same.
âI⊠donât think that we should trust her, regardless of what we choose to do. She did not say she would keep her Templars out if we cooperated. Only that she would be satisfied if we produced a mage for her. I should think her mere satisfaction worth little, compared with what the Alienage stands to lose to achieve it.â Still, she wasnât as certain as she usually seemed to be, largely because this was a matter that affected more people than she was accustomed to accounting for. She was definitely waiting to hear what her kadan had to say before solidifying anything.
"And what do we lose if we refuse her?" he asked, the question more pained than confrontational. He wasn't about to advocate working with Meredith out of any kind of agreement with her. They'd effectively just been threatened in her office punishment if they did not comply with her wishes, and they had little enough at their disposal to call in without starting a bloody struggle in the city, one which they would likely lose. The city guard could not help them; Ashton ran them well, but they did not have the numbers or training of an army, as the Templars did. One wrong step would give the Templars reason enough to force them out, as well.
Ithilian stepped off the boat first back onto the Docks, leading the way back through Lowtown. "I'm not saying we give in to all her demands... but perhaps there's a middle ground." His elven friend probably wouldn't like it much, but Ithilian had found that Emerion liked little about this place, and he had other responsibilities besides. Somewhere, there was a clan of Dalish he was supposed to be returning to, likely something he was already supposed to have done by now. "I've never thought it wise for Emerion to linger here. He's clan and kin to me, practically, but he has no interest in working with Aurora and the other mages, and refuses to hide himself as well as he should. Even if he's calmed, he's too aggressive still, too emotional."
He shrugged, beginning up a flight of dry stone steps. "I might be able to convince him to leave now, with the knowledge that Templars will trail him. Emerion's swift, and the Templars have no phylactery for him. With a head start, he'll easily reach his clan again before anyone catches him, assuming they don't lose his trail first. We give Meredith his name, the direction he fled. Acknowledgement of her so-called threat, in a direction that is no longer the Alienage." It wasn't foolproof, of course. Meredith could easily suspect that they had aided in his escape, and come down on the Alienage for it all the same, but Ithilian was willing to wager she already believed that. It was a temporary solution at best, but time was what they needed. Time for something to change in Hightown.
"She's an excited, obsessive hound. Throw a stick, and she'll fixate on it. We have an opportunity to throw it away from the Alienage."
It wasnât a terrible idea; she was perfectly willing to admit that. Still⊠Amalia ground her back teeth, the closest to an outwards expression of frustration she generally got. She had been taught to deal with problems, present or future, as swiftly and decisively as possible. Stalling and waiting for other people to accomplish things they may or may not eventually get around to was neither swift nor decisive. But what else could they do? She refused to be a Templar dog, she refused to betray the community that had taken her in, even though she was foreign and strange and human, besides.
It was not often, she acknowledged, that she had come across a problem some application of her skill, and perhaps the skills of those close to her, could not solve to her satisfaction. She had seldom been put in a situation for which these things alone were inadequate, and that was in large part because as a Qunari, she wasnât supposed to solve problems that were better suited for someone else.
âThen I suppose our task is to convince him of this.â More his task than hers, she did not doubt. Emerion tolerated her presence, but nothing more than that. âAnd hope that Meredith is satisfied by the⊠stick.â
"Not the best plan, I know," he admitted, as they finished the walk towards the Alienage. "I'll let you know if I come up with something better." Upon returning to the Alienage, they found that a number of elves were outside of their homes, not doing much other than watching for new arrivals. A few showed signs of relief when they spotted Amalia, none more so than Lia, who jogged over to greet them before they could get past the vhenadahl.
"I came as soon as I heard," she said. "Why did the Templars let you go?"
"We weren't their prisoners, officially," Ithilian answered, frowning. "Meredith wants us to do something for her."
"Does it have something to do with Emerion? Why didn't they let him go, too?"
Ithilian gave Lia a confused look at her question, looking around briefly for his friend. "What are you talking about? The Templars only took the two of us." She pointed over to the door of Emerion's house.
"Some people saw another Templar leave with him. They said his hands were bound behind his back, and the Templar held him by the arm, taking him prisoner. They left the Alienage, probably for the Gallows. You didn't see him?" Ithilian shook his head, somewhat shocked. One Templar... two had stayed behind to perform a patrol. Emerion could not have been so foolish as to reveal himself to them... could he? Or perhaps it was merely a guess by Grath or Swann, taking him in for his vallaslin? He didn't expect either of them to be that reckless. They had seemed sensible, as Templars went.
"Did they go into his house? Where did they capture him?" Lia shrugged, leading Ithilian to move past her and head for his friend's house, the other two following behind him. Immediately he could see the heavy bootprints of Templar armor in the dirt there, at least two fresh sets. He tried to push the door open, but found it locked. One look to Lia was all it took for her to get to work on the door, crouching down and applying her tools to the lock. In moments she had it open, stepping out of the way for Ithilian and Amalia to head inside.
"Lia, close the door," Ithilian said, suddenly breathless, when he laid eyes on the floor of the main room. Lia stared for a moment before complying. The sparse furniture of the room had been pushed away to the walls, the clear space in the middle for what looked to be some sort of magic ritual arrangement. Shapes were drawn in blood over the floor, geometric and symmetrical patterns, dotted with various ingredients, many of which Ithilian did not recognize. Centered among the shapes was a body, that of the red-headed Templar Knight-Corporal, Eliza Swann. Her throat had been slit, eyes still staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. A hole in her armor appeared to have been burst from the inside across most of her chest, the brestplate mangled and splitting outwards from the center.
"Gods," Lia whispered, frozen before the door.
Liaâs shock was understandable; in the time it took her to recover, Amalia had already moved to close the door. The fewer people that saw this, the better. Her eyes were hard, half-masted with something difficult to read; she traced the line of one of the many scars on her bicep with an index finger, but her eyes didnât leave the scene in front of her for several moments.
âThis doesnât make sense.â Her tone was level, though it was doubtful anyone had expected anything elseâhorribly mangled bodies were hardly new to her, and sheâd seen worse things often enough that this was hardly cause to blink. But her words were her thoughts: there were several things about this that made no sense at all. First of all, Emerion wasnât, as far as she knew, anywhere near this overt in his use of magic. Sheâd never so much as seen him use it, and a giant, presumably bloody, circle in the middle of his house was about as obvious as magic got.
Also, if the other Templar, the man, had seen this, he would have been, by most any reckoning, justified in killing the Dalish man on the spot, so why arrest him? Unless he was really cold-blooded enough to remember to do this the less-obtrusive way. Or somehow didnât know, which seemed unlikely, as they patrolled in pairs for exactly this reason. Something wasnât adding up here. Also, they had seen neither Emerion nor the second Templar on their way back from the Gallows. The route they had taken was not the only one, but it was the most direct. In any case, their chances of intercepting them on their way to the Gallows were probably slim.
But if heâd been able to get the drop on the first, surely the second would not have subdued him so easily. Amaliaâs brows knit together. âDid either Emerion or this other Templar seem injured?â
Being asked a question snapped Lia out of a bit of a daze; she blinked rapidly several times. "Uh... I don't know. I didn't actually see them, I just know what I heard. It doesn't really look like there was a struggle in here, though." She was right. All of the moved furniture was intact, there were no unusual marks or scuffs on the walls or floor, apart from the blood everywhere. If there had been a struggle, it hadn't happened in here.
Approaching the body in the center of the room, Ithilian crouched down, studying the ritual designs with a deep frown. He'd known Emerion to be capable of such blood magic, but to see it used like this came as a shock all the same. Amalia was correct that little of it made sense. Even if Emerion hadn't already been taken in, he could never return to the Alienage after this. He'd be endangering the entire community by doing so. And Grath... he didn't strike Ithilian as the type to keep his cool enough to arrest a mage after having his partner murdered. And this ritual looked to have taken some time to set up, as well.
"We need to know what this means, what the purpose of this was," Ithilian concluded. "I'm not about to storm the Gallows again without understanding the situation first." And even then, he was unsure if Emerion warranted a rescue at this point. This murder effectively proved Meredith's point, and would give her more reason to tighten her grip on the Alienage.
"Amalia, can you get Nostariel? She might know about this kind of magic. And Lia, make sure no one gets curious and wanders in here."
It didnât take more than half an hour for Amalia to retrieve Nostariel and bring her back to the Alienage, at which point she was admitted into Emerionâs house.
Even as accustomed to various stages of injury and death as she was, Nostariel blanched at the sight of the dead Templar, taking a half-step backwards before she remembered herself and pursed her lips. It was clear enough why they needed her here at this pointâAmalia had explained the basic facts, but more than that would probably have to be deciphered from what was left behind.
Slowly, Nostariel walked the circle, occasionally stopping to crouch and pick up this or that ingredient, sniffing or in one case tasting the various accouterments of the casting. She spent a few moments after that examining Swannâs corpse, murmuring something soft and frowning when a reddish light flared in her hand as a result. âItâs⊠from the circle, and the ingredients, it looks like some kind of mind control hex. Extremely advanced blood magic, actually.â She hadnât been as fervent in her avoidance of blood magic as the more fastidious apprentices in her Circle, and her time in the Wardens had amplified that knowledge, even if she was not a practitioner. But this was beyond her ken, save for the generalities.
âThe effects would be⊠quite potent, especially on a single target or small number of targetsâIâm afraid it took all of the young womanâs life force to activate.â She sighed softly, closing Swannâs unseeing eyes with her fingers. Standing, she turned to face the other three. âI wish I could tell you that any amateur blood mage could have cast this, butâŠâ she trailed off and shook her head. âI know more than most, and this is nothing I could do.â
Amalia was scowling now. Of all the stupid things to do, and of all the foolish times to do it⊠but it was unproductive to linger on that. Nodding to Nostariel, she shot a glance at Ithilian. âThe only target that fits with our information is Grath, the other Templar.â It would explain why he hadnât killed Emerion for sacrificing his partner, why neither was obviously wounded, and why this death hadnât been discovered until theyâd walked right into it.
âBut to what end would he do something like this? He has never struck me as an idiot, and this is the height of idiocy.â Surely he didnât think Ithilian was in need of rescue from the Gallows, or that he stood a chance of doing lasting damage to the Templar order by getting in close to its heart⊠did he?
"You don't know him like I do," Ithilian said, grimacing. "If he thought he needed to help us, and thought using this would actually do that..." He trailed off, staring at the body for a moment. "I think we need to warn Meredith, immediately. If we're not too late already. If something happens, and she believes we were a part of it..." It could effectively condemn them all. He wasn't fond of playing bodyguard to the Knight-Commander, but in this case, it seemed the best thing to do.
But if they would willingly allow her the power over them she seemed to want, sheâd get the same thing, at lower cost: a weakening of the tight weave of the Alienage community, and consequently a much reduced chance of any future problems out of that part of the city. Amalia pursed her lips. Neither outcome was desirable, but only two had been defined. Admittedly, attempting to fond a workaround would be difficult and possibly not even worthwhile, especially since Meredith was likely to take anything less than full compliance with her terms as resistance all the same.
âI⊠donât think that we should trust her, regardless of what we choose to do. She did not say she would keep her Templars out if we cooperated. Only that she would be satisfied if we produced a mage for her. I should think her mere satisfaction worth little, compared with what the Alienage stands to lose to achieve it.â Still, she wasnât as certain as she usually seemed to be, largely because this was a matter that affected more people than she was accustomed to accounting for. She was definitely waiting to hear what her kadan had to say before solidifying anything.
"And what do we lose if we refuse her?" he asked, the question more pained than confrontational. He wasn't about to advocate working with Meredith out of any kind of agreement with her. They'd effectively just been threatened in her office punishment if they did not comply with her wishes, and they had little enough at their disposal to call in without starting a bloody struggle in the city, one which they would likely lose. The city guard could not help them; Ashton ran them well, but they did not have the numbers or training of an army, as the Templars did. One wrong step would give the Templars reason enough to force them out, as well.
Ithilian stepped off the boat first back onto the Docks, leading the way back through Lowtown. "I'm not saying we give in to all her demands... but perhaps there's a middle ground." His elven friend probably wouldn't like it much, but Ithilian had found that Emerion liked little about this place, and he had other responsibilities besides. Somewhere, there was a clan of Dalish he was supposed to be returning to, likely something he was already supposed to have done by now. "I've never thought it wise for Emerion to linger here. He's clan and kin to me, practically, but he has no interest in working with Aurora and the other mages, and refuses to hide himself as well as he should. Even if he's calmed, he's too aggressive still, too emotional."
He shrugged, beginning up a flight of dry stone steps. "I might be able to convince him to leave now, with the knowledge that Templars will trail him. Emerion's swift, and the Templars have no phylactery for him. With a head start, he'll easily reach his clan again before anyone catches him, assuming they don't lose his trail first. We give Meredith his name, the direction he fled. Acknowledgement of her so-called threat, in a direction that is no longer the Alienage." It wasn't foolproof, of course. Meredith could easily suspect that they had aided in his escape, and come down on the Alienage for it all the same, but Ithilian was willing to wager she already believed that. It was a temporary solution at best, but time was what they needed. Time for something to change in Hightown.
"She's an excited, obsessive hound. Throw a stick, and she'll fixate on it. We have an opportunity to throw it away from the Alienage."
It wasnât a terrible idea; she was perfectly willing to admit that. Still⊠Amalia ground her back teeth, the closest to an outwards expression of frustration she generally got. She had been taught to deal with problems, present or future, as swiftly and decisively as possible. Stalling and waiting for other people to accomplish things they may or may not eventually get around to was neither swift nor decisive. But what else could they do? She refused to be a Templar dog, she refused to betray the community that had taken her in, even though she was foreign and strange and human, besides.
It was not often, she acknowledged, that she had come across a problem some application of her skill, and perhaps the skills of those close to her, could not solve to her satisfaction. She had seldom been put in a situation for which these things alone were inadequate, and that was in large part because as a Qunari, she wasnât supposed to solve problems that were better suited for someone else.
âThen I suppose our task is to convince him of this.â More his task than hers, she did not doubt. Emerion tolerated her presence, but nothing more than that. âAnd hope that Meredith is satisfied by the⊠stick.â
"Not the best plan, I know," he admitted, as they finished the walk towards the Alienage. "I'll let you know if I come up with something better." Upon returning to the Alienage, they found that a number of elves were outside of their homes, not doing much other than watching for new arrivals. A few showed signs of relief when they spotted Amalia, none more so than Lia, who jogged over to greet them before they could get past the vhenadahl.
"I came as soon as I heard," she said. "Why did the Templars let you go?"
"We weren't their prisoners, officially," Ithilian answered, frowning. "Meredith wants us to do something for her."
"Does it have something to do with Emerion? Why didn't they let him go, too?"
Ithilian gave Lia a confused look at her question, looking around briefly for his friend. "What are you talking about? The Templars only took the two of us." She pointed over to the door of Emerion's house.
"Some people saw another Templar leave with him. They said his hands were bound behind his back, and the Templar held him by the arm, taking him prisoner. They left the Alienage, probably for the Gallows. You didn't see him?" Ithilian shook his head, somewhat shocked. One Templar... two had stayed behind to perform a patrol. Emerion could not have been so foolish as to reveal himself to them... could he? Or perhaps it was merely a guess by Grath or Swann, taking him in for his vallaslin? He didn't expect either of them to be that reckless. They had seemed sensible, as Templars went.
"Did they go into his house? Where did they capture him?" Lia shrugged, leading Ithilian to move past her and head for his friend's house, the other two following behind him. Immediately he could see the heavy bootprints of Templar armor in the dirt there, at least two fresh sets. He tried to push the door open, but found it locked. One look to Lia was all it took for her to get to work on the door, crouching down and applying her tools to the lock. In moments she had it open, stepping out of the way for Ithilian and Amalia to head inside.
"Lia, close the door," Ithilian said, suddenly breathless, when he laid eyes on the floor of the main room. Lia stared for a moment before complying. The sparse furniture of the room had been pushed away to the walls, the clear space in the middle for what looked to be some sort of magic ritual arrangement. Shapes were drawn in blood over the floor, geometric and symmetrical patterns, dotted with various ingredients, many of which Ithilian did not recognize. Centered among the shapes was a body, that of the red-headed Templar Knight-Corporal, Eliza Swann. Her throat had been slit, eyes still staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. A hole in her armor appeared to have been burst from the inside across most of her chest, the brestplate mangled and splitting outwards from the center.
"Gods," Lia whispered, frozen before the door.
Liaâs shock was understandable; in the time it took her to recover, Amalia had already moved to close the door. The fewer people that saw this, the better. Her eyes were hard, half-masted with something difficult to read; she traced the line of one of the many scars on her bicep with an index finger, but her eyes didnât leave the scene in front of her for several moments.
âThis doesnât make sense.â Her tone was level, though it was doubtful anyone had expected anything elseâhorribly mangled bodies were hardly new to her, and sheâd seen worse things often enough that this was hardly cause to blink. But her words were her thoughts: there were several things about this that made no sense at all. First of all, Emerion wasnât, as far as she knew, anywhere near this overt in his use of magic. Sheâd never so much as seen him use it, and a giant, presumably bloody, circle in the middle of his house was about as obvious as magic got.
Also, if the other Templar, the man, had seen this, he would have been, by most any reckoning, justified in killing the Dalish man on the spot, so why arrest him? Unless he was really cold-blooded enough to remember to do this the less-obtrusive way. Or somehow didnât know, which seemed unlikely, as they patrolled in pairs for exactly this reason. Something wasnât adding up here. Also, they had seen neither Emerion nor the second Templar on their way back from the Gallows. The route they had taken was not the only one, but it was the most direct. In any case, their chances of intercepting them on their way to the Gallows were probably slim.
But if heâd been able to get the drop on the first, surely the second would not have subdued him so easily. Amaliaâs brows knit together. âDid either Emerion or this other Templar seem injured?â
Being asked a question snapped Lia out of a bit of a daze; she blinked rapidly several times. "Uh... I don't know. I didn't actually see them, I just know what I heard. It doesn't really look like there was a struggle in here, though." She was right. All of the moved furniture was intact, there were no unusual marks or scuffs on the walls or floor, apart from the blood everywhere. If there had been a struggle, it hadn't happened in here.
Approaching the body in the center of the room, Ithilian crouched down, studying the ritual designs with a deep frown. He'd known Emerion to be capable of such blood magic, but to see it used like this came as a shock all the same. Amalia was correct that little of it made sense. Even if Emerion hadn't already been taken in, he could never return to the Alienage after this. He'd be endangering the entire community by doing so. And Grath... he didn't strike Ithilian as the type to keep his cool enough to arrest a mage after having his partner murdered. And this ritual looked to have taken some time to set up, as well.
"We need to know what this means, what the purpose of this was," Ithilian concluded. "I'm not about to storm the Gallows again without understanding the situation first." And even then, he was unsure if Emerion warranted a rescue at this point. This murder effectively proved Meredith's point, and would give her more reason to tighten her grip on the Alienage.
"Amalia, can you get Nostariel? She might know about this kind of magic. And Lia, make sure no one gets curious and wanders in here."
It didnât take more than half an hour for Amalia to retrieve Nostariel and bring her back to the Alienage, at which point she was admitted into Emerionâs house.
Even as accustomed to various stages of injury and death as she was, Nostariel blanched at the sight of the dead Templar, taking a half-step backwards before she remembered herself and pursed her lips. It was clear enough why they needed her here at this pointâAmalia had explained the basic facts, but more than that would probably have to be deciphered from what was left behind.
Slowly, Nostariel walked the circle, occasionally stopping to crouch and pick up this or that ingredient, sniffing or in one case tasting the various accouterments of the casting. She spent a few moments after that examining Swannâs corpse, murmuring something soft and frowning when a reddish light flared in her hand as a result. âItâs⊠from the circle, and the ingredients, it looks like some kind of mind control hex. Extremely advanced blood magic, actually.â She hadnât been as fervent in her avoidance of blood magic as the more fastidious apprentices in her Circle, and her time in the Wardens had amplified that knowledge, even if she was not a practitioner. But this was beyond her ken, save for the generalities.
âThe effects would be⊠quite potent, especially on a single target or small number of targetsâIâm afraid it took all of the young womanâs life force to activate.â She sighed softly, closing Swannâs unseeing eyes with her fingers. Standing, she turned to face the other three. âI wish I could tell you that any amateur blood mage could have cast this, butâŠâ she trailed off and shook her head. âI know more than most, and this is nothing I could do.â
Amalia was scowling now. Of all the stupid things to do, and of all the foolish times to do it⊠but it was unproductive to linger on that. Nodding to Nostariel, she shot a glance at Ithilian. âThe only target that fits with our information is Grath, the other Templar.â It would explain why he hadnât killed Emerion for sacrificing his partner, why neither was obviously wounded, and why this death hadnât been discovered until theyâd walked right into it.
âBut to what end would he do something like this? He has never struck me as an idiot, and this is the height of idiocy.â Surely he didnât think Ithilian was in need of rescue from the Gallows, or that he stood a chance of doing lasting damage to the Templar order by getting in close to its heart⊠did he?
"You don't know him like I do," Ithilian said, grimacing. "If he thought he needed to help us, and thought using this would actually do that..." He trailed off, staring at the body for a moment. "I think we need to warn Meredith, immediately. If we're not too late already. If something happens, and she believes we were a part of it..." It could effectively condemn them all. He wasn't fond of playing bodyguard to the Knight-Commander, but in this case, it seemed the best thing to do.