Dragon Age: The Masked Empire

by Patrick Weekes

  Michel raised his sword, and Imshael shot him a look. The air around Michel tightened again, and his sword slipped from nerveless fingers.

  “The nearest eluvian?” Felassan asked.

  “A few hundred yards that way, in the middle of three square-looking boulders.” Imshael pointed. “Can’t miss it. Don’t forget the keystone.”

  “Appreciate it.” Felassan nodded. “Have fun.”

  “I usually do.” Imshael straightened his coat and began walking up the trail toward the Dalish camp.

  For a moment, all four people in the clearing were silent. Then the air filled Michel’s lungs again, and he took a few shuddering breaths and climbed back to his feet.

  The demon had talked politely, bantered, told jokes, but it was still a demon. And Michel had unleashed it upon the world. He coughed, trying to clear the memory of that suffocating vise wrapped around his lungs.

  “Is there anything to be done about him?” Celene asked, still on her knees.

  “Certainly.” Felassan gestured in the direction Imshael had gone. “Go get him. See how that works out for you.” At Celene’s glare, he sighed. “For now, he only cares about the Dalish. If we harassed him, he would see which of us made the most noise when our skin was ripped off.”

  “Then we deserve it.” Michel looked down, knuckles aching from their grip on his sword’s hilt. “We must slay him, or send him back to the Fade, or—”

  “Or regain Orlais,” Briala finished.

  Celene got unsteadily to her feet and staggered to the stone circle. She picked up the ruby, coughing, and straightened as though holding it gave her strength. When Michel met her gaze, it was as though her face were carved from marble.

  “We regain Orlais,” she said. “Come on. Let the Dalish deal with the demon they summoned.”

  They left the clearing and re-entered the darkness and the rain.

  13

  Celene stared at the three square boulders, dim shapes glinting green and wet in the rain by the light of Felassan’s staff.

  In the center of the circle the boulders formed, the ground had opened.

  She was freezing, soaked, still hurting from when she’d struck her head in their flight from the sylvans. But as she squinted into the hole, she felt herself smiling.

  “To pass through the eluvians.” Felassan shook his head. In the green light of his staff, he suddenly seemed very young. “Or the few of them that are left, I suppose.”

  “Is it safe?” Briala asked. She stood next to Celene, and as she spoke, her hand crept into Celene’s. Even through her soft leather gloves, Celene could feel the warmth.

  “Not at all,” Felassan said with a smile.

  “Explain,” Celene said after a moment when Briala’s mentor went silent.

  “The eluvians were sealed centuries ago,” Felassan said, and eased the head of his staff toward the hole. As the green light lit up the sides, Celene saw that after perhaps a foot of dirt, the walls were stone, smooth as her palace in Val Royeaux and inlaid with runes that sparkled as they caught the light. “They connect all of Orlais, and beyond. They were originally built in many different places, but I suspect that few elven halls of governance or trading markets have survived. The eluvians that still function are likely those that reside in the tombs of the great leaders of the elven empire. The rulers, the warriors … the mages.”

  “Traps, then,” Michel said. Celene’s champion still had his sword out, and he looked around for enemies as he spoke. His face could have been carved from the same stone as the walls of the passage. “To deter thieves.”

  Felassan nodded, and Celene turned to Briala. “Can you see what you can find?”

  Briala smiled wryly. “I don’t know that the ancient elves used the same traps we do,” she said, but she let go of Celene’s hand and crept to the hole. “Felassan?”

  “Of course, da’len.” He closed his eyes and tensed, and a moment later, light flared from his staff, turning night to day in the clearing around them.

  Celene blinked, her eyes watering with the sting of sudden brightness. As they adjusted, slowly, she had to suppress a grimace. Briala, kneeling in the dirt by the hole, was filthy and haggard. Ser Michel, her champion, had dents and scrapes on his armor and shield, and his face was pale and streaked with blood. Even Felassan looked exhausted behind the tattoos on his face, though he somehow remained untouched by the rain. She could only imagine how she herself looked—unwashed, injured, and wearing armor stolen from two dead men.

  “Pressure plate,” Briala said quietly as she lowered herself into the hole feet first. She slid out of sight, and Celene felt her heart pound for a moment. Then Briala’s head poked back up, tired but smiling. “Got it. I suppose they did make them much like we do.”

  “That should be the only one,” Felassan said, “though we will want to check periodically.” He let out a breath, and the light from his staff dimmed down to its normal radiance. Without waiting, he stepped down into the hole, taking Briala’s hand as he dropped down.

  Michel nodded to Celene, and she followed Felassan, blinking now at the sudden darkness that had afterimages playing across the rainy darkness before her.

  It was a staircase, Celene saw as her eyes adjusted, with the first step about four feet down. She lowered herself in, wincing at a sudden wash of dizziness, and felt Briala’s hand on her shoulder, steadying her as she stepped down.

  “Thank you,” Celene said, smiling, and Briala gave her a tiny smile in return.

  She followed Briala and Felassan down the stairs, with Michel behind her, his armor rattling with every precise step. In moments, the night sky was gone, replaced by stone.

  The staircase widened as they went down, until all four of them could comfortably walk abreast. The steps themselves were slightly longer than was normal. It took just a bit longer than a normal stride to cover a single stair, but not enough for two, and Celene found herself settling into an odd rhythm, taking two short steps and then a long. It made her think of the dances written in three-beat form, and she had to stop herself from humming.

  “These steps are oddly sized,” Briala said ahead of her.

  “Perhaps we were once taller,” Felassan said with a chuckle. Celene wasn’t sure whether or not he was serious.

  “Now that we have time,” Celene said to Felassan as they walked, “tell us how this will work.”

  “Miraculously,” Felassan said without pause.

  Celene shot him a look. “We walk through one of these magical mirrors as though it is a doorway, and we are transported by magic to Val Royeaux?”

  “Ah. No.” Felassan chewed on his lip, absently trailing his hand along the runes on the wall. “The eluvians—the mirrors—will take us into another land. In ancient times, paths led the elves through that other land, from eluvian to eluvian. Hopefully the paths remain.”

  “Hopefully?” Michel asked, glaring.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “So everywhere an eluvian is placed,” Briala said slowly, “is like a city district. The other land with the paths is the street, and we want to find the city’s central square, from which we can go anywhere we wish.”

  “Something like that.” Felassan smiled. “Only less urban. We must first find the central chamber the demon mentioned. That will let us awaken any eluvian we wish, without the demon’s ruby. Then, hopefully, we locate an eluvian somewhere near the seat of your empire, and you walk out and reclaim your throne.”

  Celene nodded. She did not understand it, or at least not as much of it as she would have liked, but Felassan seemed to have a plan.

  She guessed it was close to an hour before the stairs ended in a chamber the size of a small dining hall. As they reached the bottom, Felassan paused and gestured to Briala, and she stepped forward and searched at the base of the steps.

  “What is this place?” Celene asked, looking down into the chamber. Stone shelves lined the wall, with a few small flasks here and there, and what looked like perf
ume bottles. Great metal tubs, lined with the same runes as the wall, were set into the ground, near stone pallets that were each large enough to be an altar.

  The room ended abruptly in an irregularly shaped wall that Celene realized after a moment was rubble. Bottles and tubs had been knocked over, and the stone pallets on that side of the room were half covered and cracked.

  “Cave-in?” Michel asked.

  “I doubt they designed it that way, chevalier,” Felassan said. “Fortunately, time has not erased what we seek.” He gestured with his staff, and light flared, bright enough to illuminate the far side of the room.

  At first Celene thought she was looking at a doorway, so ornately was it decorated. Great stone statues of warriors with pointed elven ears stood, carved in armor that would have befitted chevaliers. They flanked a great plane of blue-gray glass that arched to a point at the top. Around the entirety of the mirror, stone carvings twisted and twined in a pattern that made Celene’s eyes hurt as she tried to follow the lines.

  “This must have been a burial chamber,” Felassan said, breaking the silence. “They’d bring the dead here with all the pageantry you’d expect. Beds with sheets of satin, plush pillows, all of it. Then the dead would be cleaned up, and mages would burn away the internal tissue.” He stared off into the distance, smiling. “Those who had entered uthenara, the eternal sleep, would be cleansed and tended by servants so that no hidden pain might pull them back into this world, then bathed in scented oils to give them the spark of wisdom in their journey.”

  Briala stood. “Another pressure plate. Very old, very sensitive, but I believe it is safe now.”

  “Good.” Felassan stepped down into the chamber. “I suggest that before we walk through the ancient magical mirror into another world, we get some sleep. I doubt we’ll be disturbed here.”

  Celene and Briala followed, with Michel coming into the chamber last. Celene saw Felassan move from shelf to shelf, reaching out but never touching the flasks. Briala was examining one of the bathing tubs, and Celene came over to her and gently touched her shoulders.

  It was more of a gesture than a real touch, given Briala’s armor, but for just a moment, Celene could imagine that she was back in her chambers in Val Royeaux, and Briala had crept in through the secret passage, a pale and beautiful spirit in the moonlight.

  “When we are back home,” Celene murmured into her ear, “we will take a long hot bath together.”

  Briala stifled a laugh and leaned back against Celene. “I have greatly missed the chance to … be clean.” She smelled of sweat and leather, and Celene wanted her all the same. “Though Felassan did say these were ceremonial baths. It would be in terribly poor taste.”

  Celene looked down at the bathing tub, and something in it felt wrong. Whether it was the runes etched into the metal or the hard angles and corners, something in the shape of it said that this was not meant for her. “Yes,” she agreed. “Best to avoid them.”

  “It is a shame, however,” Briala said softly. “They are beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like them.” She turned around, close enough that their noses brushed as she whispered, “And someday, majesty, when the elves are free, we may have this again.”

  Celene shut her eyes, pushing the wrongness of the bath and the room away. “Someday,” Celene said, and pulled her in for a kiss.

  * * *

  “What do you mean,” Gaspard said with a patience he did not feel, “the trees are attacking?”

  He had pushed his scouts hard, following the trail south past a small peasant village toward the Dales. He had offered lavish praise and good meals every night, barked orders and snarled at delays every day. It was how he dealt with dogs, horses, and men, and it always got results.

  They had tracked Celene and gained on her, as far as the scouts could tell. With last night’s downpour, Gaspard had known the trail would be harder to follow.

  Now, in the gray morning light, one of the scouts stood before him, obviously terrified, with scratches on his face and arms, telling him that things were even worse than he’d imagined.

  “They came to life, my lord,” the scout said. To his credit, his voice was steady. “Some sort of magic. We were following the trail, and we saw signs of battle with some kind of beast. Then the trees moved. They killed the men before me.”

  Gaspard grunted, then turned in the saddle to face the rest of his horsemen. “Get Lienne up here!”

  Remache rode up instead, his stallion whickering a greeting as it stopped beside Gaspard’s horse. “Is there a problem?”

  Gaspard looked down at his scout and saw a little trickle of blood flowing down the side of the man’s face. “Get someone to stitch you up,” he ordered, and the scout bowed and ran off. Gaspard turned to Remache. “Says the trees attacked his group.”

  Remache pursed his lips. “Interesting.”

  “I expected you to scoff about the common soldiers telling tales,” Gaspard said, raising an eyebrow.

  Remache smiled. “That’s certainly possible, my lord, but remember that we are not too far from Lydes. And I have heard the peasants beg my chevaliers for help from things in the forest. Often it is near the site of a battle, where the dead rest uneasily.”

  “The dead,” said Lienne de Montsimmard, “do no such thing.” She rode a small black mare that stepped so quietly Gaspard had not even noticed her approach through the wet grass.

  “And the stories of corpses rising and taking arms against the living?” Remache asked.

  “Spirits.” Lienne gestured at the forest ahead, leaning in the saddle. “All throughout the Dales, great battles once raged. Think of all that rage, all that death. Think of the rush of battle as you cut men down, my lord. As you felt their lives soak the grass because you overpowered them.”

  Gaspard nodded. “Yes, Lienne, what of it?”

  She smiled. “The spirits gather around that violence like moths around a lantern, pressing for a closer look, until the Veil between this world and the Fade is stretched thin. Where it breaks, the spirits steal in, desperate for a taste of what we mortals take for granted.” Her gaze grew distant. “The weaker ones possess something that cannot fight back, like a corpse … and as the spirits relive the battles they once witnessed, mimicking what they think of as life, we mortals only see a corpse rise and attack.”

  “What about trees?” Gaspard asked, pointing with his chin at the forest that lay ahead of them. “The scouts tell me that the trees came to life and attacked.”

  “Sylvans,” Lienne said, nodding. “Similar in nature to the corpses, but the spirits possessed trees instead of human bodies.” She dismounted, frowning as she looked at the forest ahead, then readied her staff. “I can help, but you’ll want fire.”

  Gaspard dismounted as well, frowning at the wet grass and the wet forest ahead. “Fire’s going to be hard to come by.”

  “Then you’ll make do with blood, I suppose,” Lienne said with a shrug, and started walking. “A few dozen, no more. Otherwise, the stragglers will get lost … or found.”

  Gaspard glared up at Remache, who was still mounted. “Have the archers ready fire arrows. Tell the chevaliers we go in on foot. A score of each, volunteers.”

  “My lord.” Remache bowed and spurred his mount.

  Gaspard, Remache, and the two-score warriors found the first sylvans a few hours later, near the crushed and mangled bodies of one of Gaspard’s men and what must have been one of Celene’s horses. As the tree lurched and cracked to life, pulling itself into some grotesque mockery of a man’s shape, Lienne inscribed a glyph upon the ground in glowing light, and it flared with a pure white radiance that sent the sylvan lumbering backward, tearing its own roots from the ground and roaring with fury. Gaspard’s archers peppered it with flaming arrows that seemed to sting the creature, and Lienne flung bolts of white light that cracked its bark, until finally it collapsed, charred and burning.

  Lienne turned to Gaspard, smiling. “There will be more.”
>
  “Then I’m glad you’re here with us, my dear.” Gaspard smiled and gestured for his scouts to keep moving.

  As she and the scouts pressed on, Remache stopped beside Gaspard. “My lord.”

  Gaspard turned. “A concern, Remache?”

  “Your apostate.” Remache grimaced. “She wields significant power, and I would never speak ill of a child of Montsimmard…”

  “Scares you, does she?” Gaspard smiled. “You and I are men of the world, Remache. Give us a problem that can be solved in court or on the battlefield, and we know just what to do. Talk about spirits and the Fade…”

  Remache shook his head. “Did you see her face? Those spirits speak to her, or she wishes them to. And she has never been through the Circle’s Harrowing.”

  “She has not,” Gaspard acknowledged. “Would you rather have faced that tree-creature without her magic?” At Remache’s look, he nodded. “Indeed. So for now, we must admit that there are terrible things beyond our comprehension in this world the Maker gave us … and Lienne de Montsimmard may well be one of them.”

  “And should she become more dangerous to us than the trees?” Remache asked.

  “I am no templar,” Gaspard said dryly, “but I believe that a yard of steel through the heart often works.”

  Remache nodded wordlessly and gestured to the men.

  They found more sylvans as the day wore on, and Gaspard got his men into a routine that handled the great beasts safely. Each time, Lienne’s magic held the creatures at bay, and Gaspard’s archers sank flaming shafts into them. The men were nervous, grumbling about fighting unnatural creatures, but when they saw the sylvans collapse into dead wood before ever reaching them, the men tightened their ranks with the discipline Gaspard expected.

  Then, in the afternoon, the forest came for them.

  One of Gaspard’s scouts called out as he found something—a scrap of cloth torn on a branch—and then the branch moved, twining around the scout’s head. Before an alarm could be raised, the great branches twisted and snapped taut, and the scout lurched into the sky, head wrenched from his shoulders and blood spraying as the body spun.