Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights
Page 51
Finally, I found the other Ben-Hassrath, deep beneath the castle, in tunnels that the auctioneer himself probably did not know existed. I smelled salt air farther down and surmised that they led to a smuggler’s cove, some hidden way into and out of the castle, but could not explore further, as the Qunari themselves were making preparations in my path.
These were not humans or elves who had foolishly given themselves to the Qunari cause. These were Qunari themselves, tall and gray-skinned, but lithe and fast where the Antaam soldiers are bulky and strong. They carried no lanterns or torches, but held instead a metal rod ending in a glass bulb inside which an eerie light burned more brightly than any candle. They carried blades and the thick, heavy satchels that Qunari use to store their explosive powder, and as I watched, they applied a pouch to a heavy iron door against the wall and stepped back.
They were waiting, and I wondered for what, and then I caught the strains of music from upstairs on the main floor. Musicians were entertaining the crowd, and I recognized the piece—as, apparently, did the Qunari. They nodded along with it, and just as the piece reached a loud moment fraught with crashing drums and blaring horns, the Qunari threw a small blade at the pouch.
The pouch exploded with a burst of fire, the force directed inward, and the door collapsed, blown from its hinges, with a great clatter. The Qunari looked around, waiting, and when they were satisfied that no one had heard the noise over the music up above, they went forward.
I followed after a few moments, and from my view in the shadows, I saw that they had entered a sort of ritual chamber. I marked it as elven in origin, with tall arches across the ceiling and one of the old elven mirrors on the wall, flanked by statues of halla and dragons.
In the middle of the room, sitting on a satin pillow that rested upon a stone pedestal wrought with protective runework, was the red lyrium idol.
Just as the Qunari entered the room, so did another group.
Three of them were human—two of them mages, both wearing what I recognized as the outfits of Tevinter magisters, though they had shed their masks and held their glowing staves with the subtle confidence of operatives rather than rulers. The other human held a bow, and the arrow she had nocked crackled with enchantments at the head. The last member of the Tevinter team was a golem—identical to the golems that had guarded the castle entrance as far as I could tell, save that it seemed to have intelligence in its eyes, and it stood ready to defend the humans.
For a moment, the two groups assessed one another. Then each group slowly spread out and readied their weapons.
“This is not some mere trinket,” said a female Qunari who must have led the Ben-Hassrath. “It is being searched for by a dangerous mage who styles himself the Dread Wolf. He threatens both our people. Leave, and we will have no quarrel with you tonight.”
“Why don’t you leave?” asked one of the mages. “Or do you honestly think you know how to harness this idol’s magic better than the mages of Tevinter? We know of the elven upstart. He is a mage named Solas, and his ritual has already started to affect the Fade. We cannot risk him acquiring this idol and finishing what he has begun.”
“Neither can we,” replied the Qunari.
They said more after this, but it was more of the same. They raised their weapons.
Then the eluvian, the elven mirror on the wall, sprang to life, and as both sides turned, a figure stepped out, an elf in golden armor with a wolf pelt across his shoulder.
He looked at them, and his face was empty of all expression.
As one, the Siccari and the Ben-Hassrath turned to flee, screaming in panic.
The elf’s eyes blazed once with glowing light, and everyone stopped, petrified by strange and terrible magic. Even the golem was living stone no more, its crystals dead and gray as it froze where it stood.
The elf walked unhurriedly to the pedestal. Slowly, he lifted the red lyrium idol from the pillow where it rested. He whispered something as he picked it up, tracing his gloved fingers gently along the crowned figure who comforted the other, but I could not make out the words, for I fear they were elven. Then he turned back to his mirror and stepped through its shimmering border. A moment later, it was dead and dark again.
That is all I know of the Dread Wolf, I am afraid. The idol’s journey is now complete, and it has found its master. He will destroy anyone in his way without regret or hesitation, and whatever he intends, I do not believe we can stop it.
* * *
The Bard stopped there, sighing.
“That’s a good story,” the Assassin said, cutting into the silence, “but I’d rather hear the truth.”
The Bard turned to him. “I beg your pardon, monsieur?”
“Knifing a spy, that I believe,” said the Assassin. “But tailing a Ben-Hassrath team that was specifically on the lookout for opposition? I’ve come up against the horns a few times. No way you get close enough to overhear them without them knowing it.”
“I have heard many things of the Tevinter Siccari,” the Mortalitasi added, “but I have never heard them called cowards or traitors. Most of them come from slave families, and those families are kept safe as both promise and threat, ensuring the Siccari never flinch from their duties. You say that they broke and ran as soon as a single elf walked through the mirror. I know they would have attacked.”
Charter sighed. “There are many liars at this table,” she said, “some more talented than others. I ask for my life.”
The Assassin turned to her. “What are you on about?”
“Please,” said the Mortalitasi with a sniff, “you expect us to believe that a group of ex-templars found your safe house, and came in such number that you had no choice but to surrender your great treasure? You expect us to believe that a stray arrow flew threw the window and struck the sleeping elf, who lay on the ground?”
The Assassin stood. “Oh, that’s how it is, eh?” His blade came out of its sheath, glittering in the firelight. “Then I suppose we should ask how an expert mage like yourself didn’t figure out that she was helping in a blood magic ritual. You and your friends knew the whole time—you let him kill his slaves because you wanted to see what he could do.”
The Mortalitasi held out a hand, and her staff leaped to her grasp, crackling with purple fire. The eyes of the silver figures holding the amethyst crystal began to glow, a handful of tiny pinpricks of glittering light. “There were no templars. You sold the idol to the Tevinter contact yourself, getting more money than the elf could offer, and then when your men were dying in their sleep and arrows came through the windows, you slit the elf’s throat yourself to ensure he could not finger you as the one to blame.”
The Assassin grinned. “Not bad. Tell me, I’m just a dwarf, and I don’t know much about spirits. What would make those corpses fight for you? Would blood magic bind them to do it? How did your friend die, again? You said she took a blow from behind? I’m just asking because I recall that the big dog in your story said that you were dead if you ever bound spirits again.”
The Mortalitasi went even paler than usual. “Charter, you have wasted my time.”
“I fear I have ended your time.” Charter shut her eyes and took a slow sip of tea, and then she quietly repeated, “I ask for my life.”
“I’m not killing you, elf,” the Assassin muttered. “I need to get something useful out of this. Word has it you saw that blasted elf every day in Haven. You must know something, even if you were stupid enough not to see it at the time.”
“I’m not asking you,” Charter said. “And if you think I regret not seeing Solas for what he was when he served the Inquisition, you are correct. I was outplayed. I will regret it forever, and I will never make the same mistake again.”
“How can you be certain, mademoiselle?” the Bard asked.
She looked across the table at him, at his face was still hidden under his dragon mask.
“By observing several small tells, and three large ones,” she said finally, keeping her
voice steady. “First, that few Orlesian bards would learn to speak the Qunari tongue but not elven, and fewer of those who do not speak elven would know the elven word eluvian, for the mirrors that let the ancient elves travel from place to place. Second, that the Executor has not moved since you touched his hand while he and the Assassin argued. And third … that you never drank your tea.”
The Assassin and the Mortalitasi turned.
“I know you hate the taste of tea,” Charter said softly. “It was a joke around Skyhold. Why would you order it?”
“Because it was a joke around Skyhold,” the man in the dragon mask. He sounded tired. “I was uncertain this costume would suffice, so I did everything that the Dread Wolf would not … except, it seems, bring myself to drink the tea.”
“I ask for my life,” Charter said a third time.
The Assassin and the Mortalitasi both sprang, and the eyes behind the dragon mask blazed with a fiery light for a moment.
“Ar lasa mala,” he said, and his Orlesian accent was gone, replaced by the rolling lilt that was almost Dalish, but not quite. “I grant it to you.”
The Assassin and the Mortalitasi were still where they stood, their skin and clothes suddenly the gray of dead, dull stone.
The man in the mask stood, sighed, and took the staff from the Mortalitasi statue’s hand. He took the stirring stick from just below the gem at the head of the staff, drew it out, and held it for a moment. “You are free,” he murmured. The stirring stick glowed for a moment in his hands, and then a wisp of energy flickered away.
He turned back to Charter and removed the mask, tossing it carelessly to the table, and she saw his face again, just as she had seen it for all those months at Haven and Skyhold, never suspecting a thing. An elf, bald—the golden locks had been part of the mask. An oval face with full lips, and a tiny scar on his brow. Pointed ears, previously hidden under the mask and wig.
“Excellent work on the Executor,” Charter said. “You petrified him, but not his robes.”
“I would caution you in dealing with those across the sea,” he said. “They are dangerous.”
“More dangerous than the elf who threatens the world?” Charter asked, and was rewarded with a twitch of his lips that acknowledged the point. “Why did you come? Why you personally?”
“I wished to know what you all knew,” he said, gesturing at the table. “There are many of you, and you are not fools. As for me coming in person … the Inquisition was involved.” He returned to his seat. “Why did you come?”
She shook her head helplessly. “Because you told the Inquisitor that you were going to destroy this world,” she said. “Did you expect us not to try to stop you?”
He sighed. “It was a moment of weakness. I told myself that it was because you all deserved to know, to live a few years in peace before my ritual was complete. Before this world ended.”
“Then perhaps we are not the only ones you lied to,” Charter said. “You do not have to do this.”
His look pinned her. “I have no choice. What I am doing will save this world, and those like you—the elves who still remain—may even find it better, when it is done.”
Charter considered lying, but then she thought of Tessa, with her quick smile and strong hands. “There are those I care for who would not.”
He smiled sadly. “I know that feeling well. I am not a god, Charter. I am prideful, hotheaded, and foolish, and I am doing what I must. When you report back to the Inquisitor…” His voice faltered. “Say that I am sorry.”
He walked away, and Charter remained still until the curtain closed behind him.
Then she drank the rest of her tea, her fingers shaking a little. She looked at the dragon mask on the table.
Prideful, hotheaded, foolish. Doing what he must. Sympathetic to elves. Said that he was sorry.
The red lyrium idol was of a crowned figure comforting another.
It was not much, but it was more than she had known before, she thought. Pulling a small notebook from one pocket, she began to write her report.
After all, the Dread Wolf wasn’t going to stop himself.
NOVELS IN THE DRAGON AGE™ SERIES
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne
Dragon Age: The Calling
Dragon Age: Asunder
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire
Dragon Age: Last Flight
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Three Trees to Midnight Patrick Weekes
Down Among the Dead Men Sylvia Feketekuty
The Horror of Hormak John Epler
Callback Lukas Kristjanson
Luck in the Gardens Sylvia Feketekuty
Hunger Brianne Battye
Murder by Death Mages Caitlin Sullivan Kelly
The Streets of Minrathous Brianne Battye
The Wigmaker Job Courtney Woods
Genitivi Dies in the End Lukas Kristjanson
Herold Had the Plan Ryan Cormier
An Old Crow’s Old Tricks Arone Le Bray
Eight Little Talons Courtney Woods
Half Up Front John Epler
The Dread Wolf Take You Patrick Weekes
Novels in the DRAGON AGE™ Series
Copyright
Electronic Arts, Inc., EA, and EA logo are trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. BioWare, BioWare logo, and Dragon Age are trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
DRAGON AGE: TEVINTER NIGHTS
Copyright © 2020 by Electronic Arts, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Ramil Sunga/BioWare
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First Edition: March 2020