I was going round a turn when a thrashing mass of tentacles shot out of the cracks and water. I yelled and slashed, lopping off a dozen grasping, roiling feelers. The thing’s wormy bulk swung, and milky flesh peeled back to reveal … I don’t know. A blade? It was silvery, but air bent round it like cleaved space. It slashed arcs that cut the rock behind me like soft butter.
I ran. Ropes writhed along the ceiling after me, and some of them opened up eyes, ordinary people’s eyes studded into the flesh like jewels on a fancy sword sheath. The Cekorax’s voice was many voices speaking together, all tiny and softly rotten.
“Slip gently.” A rope of tentacles splattered behind me. There was a delicate noise like air tearing. Part of my cloak fluttered into the muck. I ran faster, legs pumping. The thing loped off more cloth, like it was playing.
“Stay with us,” it cooed. It’s hard to explain the joyful malice radiating out from it. You could feel it, like cold in the winter. “Come inside, where it’s warm. There is room in the crown of the blind.”
Still running, I twisted to block with my sabre. The air hummed. I felt a sting on my cheek, and my blade fell to pieces. Weaponless, bleeding, lungs on fire, I dug out something I’d cobbled together from the supplies from Dorian’s storehouse, and threw it hard at the Cekorax.
The secret of smoke pellets is this: Never throw them by your feet. Aim at whoever or whatever is chasing you. Preferably at the eyes.
Black, oily clouds bloomed out of the pellet satchel, filling the tunnel. It saved me, but not the way I’d thought. I peered back, still running, to see the damn monster bunching its tentacles around inky curls, prodding and palpating the stuff. It was examining the smoke. Whenever its pale limbs touched each other they fused together. When it flexed, they split and re-formed. Others tangled up, slowly reabsorbing as they lazily rippled through its main, wormy mass.
I tell you, friends: I still can’t enjoy a plate of octopus after that.
I made it around another corner, but heard “Come back, visitor,” as loud as if the Cekorax had been breathing into my ear. I saw a lone tentacle roping across the pipes above me. “I am a sweeter ending than you know. Things are rising.” It modulated down to a whisper and unsheathed its silver. “Stay safe inside of me.”
I scooped up a brick and threw. There was a satisfying splat, and the crumpled thing shot backward, leaving a trail of bright-glowing slime behind it. At last, I was by an exit. I scrambled up the ladder and slammed the iron cover down. I hadn’t come out on a street, but the bottom of a stairwell. No worries, I thought, as I lurched up, blood trickling down my face. I’d climb a hundred staircases before I went down there again. So long as this place was dry and safe, I was for it.
Which is how I ended up stumbling out of a storage closet into a templar barracks.
* * *
Only water left? Let’s get another barrel, shall we? Much obliged. Where was I? Right.
So I spent the next fifteen minutes dodging armored brutes trying to throw me in jail for “trespassing with malicious intent.” That’s what they shouted, anyway. The templars in Tevinter, unlike the rest of the world, lack the ability to stop magic. They’re only guards with fancy equipment doused in lyrium. It gives them chips the size of trees on their shoulders, if you ask me, and might explain their surliness.
After dodging the chase, I scrubbed myself clean on a weedy beach. It washed off my makeup, but better salty and wind-chapped than wear the stink of that sewer for another moment! Wrapping my face in a scarf, I returned to the inn so I could change my clothes, give the old ones up for burning, and examine the map of Minrathous.
Right then I felt someone else should sort out that monster, money be damned. But I did feel obliged to at least give Dorian Pavus a location, a description of the Cekorax, and a hearty handshake before I left. So, after a blessed change of clothes, I set out to find the building that stood over where I’d met the Cekorax below. I certainly wasn’t going back to the sewers, but I could give Dorian it’s rough location before I fled the city.
So I went by Minrathous’s many stairs and crenellated walkways, avoiding canals and cesspits completely. In defiance of my encounter with the Cekorax, the sun was shining brilliantly. The map led me to an enormous terrace suspended over a swarth of climbing, glittering plants and trickling fountains. These were the vast gardens I’d spied from Dorian’s suite.
What’s that? Yes, to my surprise. Even in the sun, the plants shimmered with light. It was subtler in daytime, but gave everything a sort of jeweled look. All this sat above the Cekorax’s lair, a solid three floors above the ground. Despite the sun, as I walked past statues of stern magisters, a melancholy settled over me.
A Lord of Fortune doesn’t like giving up. True, this wasn’t some glorious jewel, begging to be freed. It was a monster I couldn’t fight. If I’d had a crew with me … but I didn’t. Not in that city. I was dressed in an Orlesian mask and cloak, which wouldn’t attract much attention from strutting mages, so I decided the gardens would be my last taste of Minrathous’s luxury.
There was laughter in those gardens, and rose bowers, and loops of Arbor Blessing, and sweet apples with their own perfume, and vendors hawking sticky figs rolled in nuts, and a pool lush with Dawn Lotuses. Waterfalls showered the ponds, thanks to cleverly hid aqueducts ferrying water from the looming reservoir. Tiny butterflies flapped everywhere. An illusion, I learned, when a flock passed harmlessly through my arm.
Where’s that next round? Good! Thank you kindly.
My wandering took me to a stand of trees around a pond. Thick birches, studded with large holes the way they get sometimes. Birds had built nests in them. I peeked at one. Empty. The next two were likewise. There was another deeper in the stand. I walked a few lazy paces, and peered in, and was met with a nest of bones. Bodies of a dozen birds of all sizes, headless, had been piled carefully to form a dome. It had a grotesque sort of style. The birds were all turned the same way, as if the flock was chasing itself down.
I stumbled back into the clearing. Only grabbing a branch saved me from dunking my idiot arse in the pond. The birch next to me shuddered, and I watched as a white tendril slid out of a hole in the bark and opened up a wet, brown eye.
The Cekorax tittered. I slowly retreated, step by questing step, back onto the main stone path. Some of those birds’ necks had been freshly bloody. I felt unshakably it wasn’t some old collection. The Cekorax had placed it there in the clearing, fresh, just for me.
As I walked in a slow daze I could now see the faintest undercurrent of blue in the hollow tree trunks housing the Cekorax, snug as a spider. The more I looked, the more I picked out its coils running behind the grass by a wall, around the base of trees, perfectly camouflaged in the hanging vines.
I tried not to shake. I and everyone strolling along were surrounded by a perfect predator. The Cekorax was nestled throughout the entire gardens. Whatever I’d seen below was the smallest part of it.
“Visitor,” its pulpy voice whispered, as I edged to the gates. Eyes suddenly blinked on a strand of ropes shifting in the shade next to me. “Watch.”
Far down the path was an elven slave trudging after a chattering mage. A tentacle slid through the grass and flicked the hem of the elf’s robes. He stopped and looked around, puzzled. Nothing there. He didn’t see the second appendage rear up from a thicket, fraying open to reveal a cutting edge.
A jug smashed into it. I barreled in, loud and doing my best imitation of an Orlesian accent. “Sirs! Watch out, please!”
The mage turned. His surprise quickly became annoyance. “I’m sorry?”
“A venomous drake-adder!” I leaned on my legs as if tired from a short run in my thick dress, shaking my head. “I didn’t think you had them in Tevinter!”
“What are you on about?”
“See here?” I lifted the bush. There was a smear of milky blue, glowing softly in the shade. “It is a most poisonous snake. We have many in Ghislain. I am afraid I only wounded
it, but the animal was preparing to strike.”
Well no, I can’t do anywhere near a Ghislain accent. I’ve never been to Ghislain. But see, neither have most people in Tevinter.
The Cekorax’s “blood” left a powerful stench. The mage sniffed the air. “That does smell foul.” He backed away. “Well, thank you, madam. You’ve saved me the trouble of training up a new amanuensis, eh, Florix?”
Florix kept his face carefully straight as he gave a strained laugh. “As you say, master.”
They left, taking a causeway out of the gardens and into a colossal tower in the curved shadow of the reservoir.
“Fortunate.” The Cekorax gurgled, too close beside me. It didn’t sound angry. I can’t tell you why, but I had the feeling I amused it. Why shouldn’t I? I hadn’t done any real damage, grabbing that watering jar and hurling it. As in the sewer, I’d just managed to slow it down.
The gate out of the gardens was so close. Could I outrun it? Would it let me go? Would it permit me a few steps, then lop my head off and hide my body in a lotus pond?
“No more false faces. No masks. Become soft and blind in the crown of me.”
That energized me. My art is my own, and no Maker-forsaken thing was going to take it. I ran past the gates to shade and freedom.
“There will be others.” Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I heard something wistful, as the Cekorax added, “They will be joined in me.”
* * *
I shoved my way through the crowds, heading for the docks. I’d send a letter to Dorian, I told myself. At least he’d believe me. I was done with the place. This wasn’t my city. As if to agree, there was a whip crack, and a cart of dull-eyed elves and humans in chains lumbered by. I lurched to the left, seeing freedom in the sails of the clippers and galleons preparing to depart with the tide.
“Hey! You!”
Silver flashed off an armored templar pointing at me. I was just as floored as I’d been by the Cekorax. A second-rate templar seeing right through one of my disguises from several houses away?
“Look there!” the templar cried. “It’s the one with that fancy map case!”
Ah-ha! I was only a dolt carrying very recognizable jewels. I ran.
This time it was harder. The templars had me pegged for a serious thief. Sorry? Well, yes, true, but I hadn’t stolen anything worth the run they gave me. I vaulted up and across rooftops with an ease that had the crowds clapping, but there was always a templar in the next street, a silver fist on the walkway. Eventually I was cornered in a short alley by six of them, their swords and maces ready.
There’s no one who looks as cross as a templar you’ve just made run several city streets in full armor.
I tried to decide between running up sheer stone or begging for mercy before hitting one in the eye. Then someone dropped a golden flask on the templars’ heads.
There was a pop. Lightning sizzled. The templars yelled and beat at their armor.
“Up here!” a voice hissed. That urchin, Mizzy, was hanging out a window. I could reach it with help. I ran, jumping onto one of the templars. Lightning flashed. I felt like I’d been bitten by a snake, but I pushed off the howling woman, teeth gritting, and my fingers found the ledge.
Many rooftops later, I was satisfied we’d lost them. I turned to thank Mizzy, who was staring.
“What were you doing at the docks?” she asked.
“How did you know it was me?”
“You’ve got that map case.” She peered at me. “You were moving different, too, until the guards saw you.”
“Have you been following me?”
“I’m bored. Your skin’s all painted.”
“Orlesian custom,” I said, touching the heavy makeup with a finger. “This shade by the neck is all the rage in Val Royeaux. What was in that flask?”
Mizzy took another flask somewhere out of her clothes. Something crackled inside it like a miniature storm cloud. “I run messages for a chemist mage who makes them and sometimes she throws out bottles that don’t work right and she doesn’t care if I take them. S’magic. It makes you faster when the lightning comes out. Did you know lightning hates metal?”
Minrathous! A city where magic’s so common it gets thrown into a gutter. “Well, thank you.”
“Were you going to leave?”
“No,” I lied. “I’ve found the Cekorax. A mage and I, a good mage, are thinking of a way to kill it.” I stood up and brushed off my cloak. “It’ll be dead before you know it. By the way, stay away from the gardens.”
“Oh. All right.”
It was those flat little words that stopped me. I looked at Mizzy and saw her lip tremble, and realized she knew I’d lied but was pretending. That her friends killed by a monster were worth avenging. That someone in this grinding city would help. That a funny stranger in fancy dress would turn out to be, if not a hero, a decent imitation of one.
All the while the crackling clouds in the bottle kept turning. My breath caught and something broke open in my head. A reckless, perilous plan, but one I knew I had to chance if I ever wanted to call myself a Lord of Fortune in good standing.
“Mizzy?” I asked. “How would you like to make a hundred aurum?”
The girl gaped. Then her eyes brightened. Imagination had won. “For what, mister?” She looked at the dress. “Missus?”
“It’s missus when I’m in this outfit. Anyhow: We’ll need mages. And a trip to your alchemist. And—” My fingers twitched, as they do when I’m on a sudden upswing. “Best do this at night, Mizzy.”
* * *
Dorian’s patronage or not, I felt it best to be cautious after the debacle with the templars and the map case. Besides, what I was planning needed a certain amount of discretion. People would have questions after we put my plan into motion—never mind that if it worked, they should thank me! I’ve learned not to overestimate gratitude with these things.
So people saw a human magister sweep into an alchemist’s shop. After deep consultation with the doddering woman, she purchased a variety of eye-wateringly dangerous powders. A cloaked dwarf, newly emerged from the underground and complaining about the sun, purchased a quanari-style harpoon from a purveyor of slightly reclaimed weaponry. It was a smudgy elf child who ran through the public gardens, pretending to clean refuse while clandestinely placing sacks underneath benches and a package in the crook of a fountain. She was later met by a hunched quanari slave, hobbling with her into the press of the streets.
Then, after I wiped the makeup from Mizzy’s squirming face, and changed into the clothes I’d worn when I first met him, we visited Dorian Pavus. He let us in with a raised eyebrow, and was very good about not throwing me out when I told him my plan.
* * *
It was dark when the lovers, spies, poets, thieves, and magisters still occupying the public gardens were driven out by a sudden wave of throat-scouring fumes. The stuff was so powerful my eyes streamed as Mizzy and I sat on a pair of aqueducts below the reservoir. From that vantage, you saw the thing was shaped like an onion bulb on stilts. Dragons frolicked above.
“I think everyone’s gone,” said Mizzy.
There was still a little makeup on her chin. The Cekorax wouldn’t know her, but Mizzy had insisted on going out in disguise anyway when she tossed those satchels about. The bags slowly baked in the sun, letting off their vapors when the night came and they cooled again. The alchemist had tried to explain it to me. I had told her it should be adequate for “driving rats off my property.”
“It’s time.” I gave Mizzy a gentle shove. “Get up to where Dorian and his friend are. I’ll give you a signal when I’m ready.”
“What’s that?”
“Waving, possibly some yelling.”
She nodded. “I like your clothes.” I was wearing the colorful sashes, capes, pants, shirt, belts, scarves, charms, and gold jewelry that are the right and privilege of any Lord of Fortune that lasts a year or two. Yes, like I’m wearing now. Noise wouldn’t be a problem that night.
I gave Mizzy a bangle, and her eyes went wide.
“I’ll keep it always, even if you end up dying,” she told me. Then with that slice of cheer, she ran off into the dark.
I tied a wet scarf tight around my lower face. This would be the worst part. I saw glowing leaves shiver as I strolled, conspicuously, right through the gardens.
The scarf helped with the fumes. Nothing else stopped me. As I walked, coughing a little, I saw coils slip out of sight, and heard a noise light as a sigh in the blossoms and the trellises and the trees.
“Visitor. Oh, visitor. Come to me.”
It could draw you, that voice. It was too easy to slide to the center of that green maze, down the terraces to where the water in a fountain rippled with the breeze.
“Hello again,” I choked out. “How’ve you been?”
That tittering again. High and away, I saw two small dots of blue glow from a ledge on the tower beside the reservoir. Two vials of lyrium. Mages drink the stuff, sparingly, when they’re about to undertake great works.
“Cekorax.” I coughed again, and projected my best pleading and yearning, a hopelessness that “not enough” is all life would ever be. “Here I am. I give up. You can have me. If! I beg a favor, just one thing. I’ve only seen part of you. Your whole, great Cekorax. Before I die, that’s what I want to see.”
The fountain gurgled, and eyes sprang out from the bushes and under the water, strands of ropes brazenly coiling up the trees.
“Yes,” that awful voice fluted to me.
Its flesh poured into the lawns around the fountain, churning balls of worms connecting and re-forming. One teasingly sliced off one of my dangling scarves, held it in front of a curious eye, as more and more of the monster drew itself out of the gardens in front of me. I backed away, climbing onto the stone lip of the fountain. A four-headed stone dragon spewed water into the basin.
“Look,” the Cekorax said, as a mass as tall as a house undulated up. It peeled open at the top, like a lily, and tilted forward so I could see.
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Page 16
