Dragon's Era- No Man's Land

by Jacon Winfree

  "Anyway, once they were gone, the city administrators took possession. We have a reasonable claim, as Uncle Gamlen had sold off the property without any legal right to do so. I have my grandparents' will, in which they clearly left their property to my mother. However, getting a hearing... filing the papers with the right functionary... paying the various fees... it all requires far more coin than I have. The Viscount's seneschal despises me, which doesn't help a bit."

  Sirius had his own, jaundiced views about family manors, but he allowed that not everyone might feel the same. He had been introduced to Leandra Hawke, and thought her a sweet, well-meaning woman, completely out of her depth. He guessed that Amaryllis' father had kept it all together, and then after his death, all responsibility had somehow devolved on Amaryllis. It was horribly unfair. At some level, Leandra blamed Amaryllis for the death of her sister Bethany, who had been killed during the Blight. Sirius' guess was that Leandra herself had unspoken, unacknowledged issues with magic. Carver was even more blunt about blaming his older sister for their troubles.

  "Frankly," Sirius said, "I don't see why you have to do everything for your mother and brother. They're adults—or at least your mother is and your brother claims to be. If he doesn't like it, why doesn't he get a bloody job?"

  She turned red. "He tried to... he really did. Surely you've seen how prejudiced people in this town are against Fereldans...how they sneer at us, and call us Dog Lords..."

  "I've seen that this town certainly doesn't pay proper respect to dogs. That's true, isn't it, old boy?" he asked Dane, who responded with a hearty "woof!"

  Hawke was exasperated now, and explained further.

  "We're friends with the Captain of the City Guard—to a point."

  "That Captain AvAstride woman."

  "Yes, her. We helped her escape from Lothering. We helped each other get to Kirkwall. AvAstride had a commission in the Fereldan army, and on the strength of that she was accepted by the City Guard. Carver tried to join, but AvAstride blacklisted him. Between us, I think it was a rotten thing to do, but I have to keep my mouth shut. Her good will is simply too valuable for me to tell her what I think. If we can make our fortune in the Deep Roads, and then have some income from the mine, we'll have enough that Carver having a job won't matter."

  "Why do you have to live in this rotten town, anyway?"

  She sighed. "It's Mother's home. Now that Father's gone, I think she wants to relive the days of her youth, when she was the admired daughter of Lord Amell. And really, what does it matter? Kirkwall is particularly awful to mages, but the treatment is only one of degree. Anywhere I went —other than Tevinter, and that's unthinkable—I'd be hated and hunted as an apostate."

  He took her by her shoulders and made her look at him. "We'll get your gold. We'll get your mother's house for her. And then, your days of being hated and hunted will end. I promise you."

  Then she threw her arms around him and kissed him right there in the street. And instantly the world changed.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  After it was over, Sirius decided that he had been sent to Thedas to save Amaryllis from certain death in the Deep Roads. He could not imagine how any of the party would have survived without him, for that matter.

  He made a point of scourgifying any surface where they rested or slept, of boiling any water they found. His friends had learned to do likewise. Carver complained of the flat taste of the boiled water, but no one wanted to catch Blight disease. Sirius hated the stink of Kirkwall, but the Deep Roads smelled infinitely worse. It was outrageous that Amaryllis had to suffer this to make her family happy.

  There were five of them, but only because of Varric's smooth talking. Bartrand had tried to limit Hawke to only two companions. Anders, with the Deep Roads maps and his Grey Warden experience, was too valuable to leave behind. Sirius absolutely refused to be left behind. Carver sulked and fumed until Amaryllis was ready to forget the entire thing. Once Varric sorted out things with his brother, Leandra showed up, pleading with Amaryllis not to allow Carver in the party. In the end, Amaryllis took her mother aside, and whatever she said, worked, though Leandra left sobbing.

  She whispered to Sirius, "I told her that if she kept Carver from this—if she shamed him publicly by making a baby of him— she'd lose him anyway. He'd do something crazy... leave town...join the Templars...go to sea. He wants to be his own man. With his share of the gold, he can do that, and still live in Kirkwall."

  Carver was still sulking, embarrassed by his mother's scene. They were two miles into the caverns before he would speak to anybody. Sirius rather welcomed the silence. Varric bit back a grin, reading his mind. Anders, deplorably, smirked. Hawke made him walk on her other side, as far from Carver as possible.

  Later that day, Sirius saw a dwarven thaig for the first time. After that, he saw darkspawn... and other things.

  * * *

  "Stupefy!"

  He roared out the hex just as Varric's slimy elder brother was trying to trap them in a remote chamber deep underground. The dwarf dropped instantly, the red Nacronite idol clattering away. Bartrand was scum to begin with, and the idol had just made him worse. Without further ado, Sirius vanished the idol, much to Varric's dismay.

  "That was worth a fortune!"

  "It was evil. Sick, dark magic. It made your brother try to kill you."

  "Bartrand's been trying to kill me since I was five years old!" Varric shrugged, looking down at his brother. "But he never came this close to succeeding before, I'll grant you."

  It was nerve-wracking knowing that Bartrand would be at the base camp, no doubt plotting more murderous schemes. Sirius put him quietly to sleep, and had some of the guards take him back to his tent, telling them that Bartrand had made himself ill with an overdose of Nacronite. He needed to sleep, and they would go on and look for the dwarven thaig's treasure.

  And thus Sirius descended further into the Deep Roads, and used the death curse for the first time in his life. Then he used it again, and again, and again.

  "Avada Kedavra!" brought down darkspawn like nothing his friends had ever seen. The creatures simply collapsed, limp as unstrung puppets. Two words did it all.

  "It's tiring," Sirius told them. "And that curse is never to be used on humans. Or dwarves or elves, either. It was a capital crime back home to use it on people."

  "It's amazing," murmured Anders, his eyes gleaming with ghastly possibility. Sirius grabbed him by the sleeve and took him aside, shoving him not so gently against the wall of the cavern they were exploring.

  "You don't use it on people," he repeated. "Never. Not for any reason."

  "I think it's terrific," Anders replied, with a certain cocky defiance. "Painless. Efficient. Conclusive. You've had it easy, back in that safe little world of yours, Sirius. You don't know what it's like to be put in solitary confinement for a year because someone thinks you're a danger to society."

  It was too much. Sirius grabbed Anders and slammed him back against the stones.

  "I don't, do I?" he snarled. "I spent twelve years in a demon-haunted prison because no one could be bothered to hear the truth. I escaped, swimming miles across an icy sea, and then I lived as a dog in a cave, eating scraps. Everyone I loved was either dead or was being fed the story that I'd betrayed them, all for politics. Don't you ever tell me that I don't know about suffering! And in spite of that, I never used the death curse on a person, no matter how vile!"

  "Stop this now!" Hawke demanded, stepping between them. She gave Carver a hard look, since he was grinning at the sight of the despised mages squabbling. "We can't fight among ourselves! Anders, drop it. Obviously, we can use things against the darkspawn we'd never use otherwise. Now let's get on with it. We have our fortunes to find."

  The two wizards exchanged glares. Sirius hoped they found heaps of gold, because it was clear he would have to move into new digs as soon as this little adventure was over.

  The gold was the
re, and they made it their own. It was not quite the vast fortune in the Black vault at Gringotts, but it was a life-changing amount, even after it was shared out among the party.

  It was a slow slog back to camp, but their hearts were high. Sirius had considered preparing a portkey to take them back instantly, but felt some reserve about anyone but mages knowing about the possibilities of instant, magical travel. He trusted Varric, who was becoming a good friend, but he did not trust young Carver not to blab. Besides, carrying large amounts of gold had a certain charm.

  * * *

  Leandra Amell was very pleased to move back into the old family manor, though she remarked that it seemed smaller than she remembered. Carver claimed the biggest room for himself. He also made such an enormous fuss that Amaryllis gave him half of the share she received as a full partner in the expedition. As it was added to the payment as a guard he had already received, he earned more from the Deep Roads Expedition than his sister. He was quite smug about it. Amaryllis took the small room next to her mother without any complaint, since she was already planning on moving out quite soon.

  Sirius was smug about that. Things had changed between them on their safe return to Kirkwall. One thing had led to another, once Amaryllis did not have to worry about discipline and morale and keeping her companions from fighting each other. At one point Anders had been a rival, but Anders' wild talk had pushed them apart. Sirius found it ironic to be considered the responsible one of their little "collective." Ironic... and quite wonderful.

  Things were thus rather tense between Anders and himself, so he took a room at the Hanged Man until his latest plans came to fruition.

  He had hated the house in Grimmauld Place, but he had learned lessons from it that he now realized were beyond price. There was a house in High Town he had his eye on. It was nominally owned by a merchant's consortium, but actually by yet another of Kirkwall's innumerable criminal gangs. He had scouted it out very thoroughly while disillusioned. It would do very well. Once it was cleared out, it would disappear from all civic records and gradually fade into oblivion among the muggle population. And it would be right there all the time, protected by his family's traditional wards. It would be magically expanded and improved, and could be headquarters for Kirkwall's desperate, endangered witches and wizards. Eventually, they might want to find something larger, in a more remote location, but for the time being, it would do very well. He and Amaryllis would be able to make a start with their life together.

  And so they did one night, the three of them. Sirius, Amaryllis, and Dane cleared out that vicious band of twenty-odd murderers and vanished the remains. Then they vanished the pitiful remains in the cellar: some of the gang's victims, many of whom bore marks indicating they had been toyed with for some time.

  There was quite a bit of treasure in the vault: enough to live on for years. They walked through the mansion cleaning, expanding, dividing rooms, creating new staircases. Sirius began setting up the first wards: the ones that would keep muggles from taking notice of the mansion and anyone coming or going from it. The next wards would actively repel muggles; more would cause muggles to forget the house's very exiArvidce. Eventually, they would have to sneak into the Viscount's Keep, and erase the exiArvidce of their home from the city's records-and tax rolls. Sirius took care to set the wards from cellar to well above the roofline. Having a garden up at the top of the house would be very pleasant in warmer weather.

  "What a lovely idea!" Amaryllis enthused. "I love gardening. We can grow our own vegetables... and roses. We could have even have a few dwarf fruit trees!"

  "Whatever you like," Sirius assured her. A degree of self-sufficiency would not be a bad idea. Truth to tell, he was a bit concerned about being noticed in the market. Kirkwall was not all that big, after all. It was not like muggle London, where a man could vanish into a multitude. In Kirkwall, informers loafed on every corner. Even obliviating them on a regular basis might attract the wrong kind of attention. He reminded himself that he needed to teach Amaryllis how to apparate as soon as possible. They could practice here, in the main hall of their new home, so she could always come here if she were threatened. After the first lesson, they were in a fine flow of happy spirits, and chose a bedroom for themselves.

  * * *

  "We can't marry," she told him. "Not legally. Not here in Kirkwall. Too many people have heard rumors about me, and the Chantry registry office is guarded by inquisitive Templars."

  "Yes, we can," Sirius replied, utterly certain. "I'll cast a confundus charm on everyone in the Chantry if I have to, but we'll be married." He gave a thought to the future, and how mages would simply record their marriages among themselves. For now, though, Amaryllis wanted a normal wedding—or what passed for one in these parts.

  She was doomed to disappointment. Sirius presented himself to the Hawke family to ask for the honor of Amaryllis' hand, and the wails and bellows rose up to Heaven.

  "Oh, my darling!" sobbed Leandra. "Haven't you learned anything? I couldn't bear for you to live a life like mine!"

  "I told you to stay away from her!" Carver shouted.

  Carver was tall, but Sirius was just a bit taller, and utterly unimpressed with the bluster. Leandra's tears wounded Amaryllis, but did not deter Sirius for a moment.

  "Mistress Hawke," he said, ignoring Carver, and taking Amaryllis by the hand. The dog came to stand with them, which was no more than Sirius had expected. "Mistress Hawke," he repeated, "Amaryllis wants to live her own life. You are here in the family manor, fortune restored. What more do you require of your daughter? That she devote every breath to you? And just try take a swing at me, Carver, and I swear I'll knock you on your pimply arse!"

  "Sirius!" Amaryllis protested. "This isn't helping!" She turned to her mother. "Please be happy for me. Sirius and I have to go our own way. You must know it's for the best. Once I'm out of the house, you and Carver will have nothing to hide… nothing to fear. You can move in society without worrying that someday Templars will break down the door."

  Carver had subsided, looking at her thoughtfully. "Maybe she's right…"

  "Oh, Carver!" Leandra groaned. "She's your sister."

  "No, she's right," the boy insisted. "If she weren't… different… you'd never think of keeping her here beside you forever. You'd be matchmaking, and pleased to see her go off to her own home. Who else can she marry, anyway? Without tricking some decent man, I mean?"

  Amaryllis looked away in disgust. "Oh, thank you so much for that, brother. Come on, Sirius. I'll get my things, and we'll go."

  "But where?" cried Leandra. "Where can you go? How will you live?"

  "As I always have, Mother. By my wits. By my magic."

  "She's going to be fine," Sirius told them, as Amaryllis went up to her room to pack. A good thing that she now knew feather-weight and shrinking charms. "We'll come see you from time to time. As to where we are, perhaps it's just as well that you don't know. If the Templars ask questions, you can be perfectly honest in your ignorance."

  * * *

  Instead, they had a fairly uproarious wedding, attended by their friends and comrades. Even Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven, attended. Terribly earnest; terribly devout. Sirius pictured him popping like a balloon if poked with a pin.

  None of that, of course: he must be on his best behavior at his own wedding. Most of the faces about them were kind and friendly. Anders was making an effort, but the effort was so manifest that little Merrill kept asking him if had a headache. Fenris was polite and reserved. His experiences in the Evil Empire made it impossible for him to believe that two mages potentially breeding was a good thing.

  Sirius mixed business with pleasure by taking time to reconnoiter the Chantry, which was crowded that day: full of noisy children and chattering women. He paused to take a look at the huge gilded statue of the Prophet Andraste, and refrained from shaking his head. Muggle religion could be peculiar enough back home: here they insisted on worshiping a god whom
they themselves admitted had turned his back on them, and who would not relent until the whole world sang his praises.

  Praises? Sirius puzzled over that. Praise for what, exactly? For being in a snit for the last thousand years?

  The elderly woman priest was very kind, once the fee was paid, and recited the usual pious gobbledygook. The vows were brief, and included nothing that Sirius was not happy to promise. Amaryllis had a new gown and look utterly ravishing... and ravishable.

  The only awkward moment was on their departure, when they came face to face with a pair of tall Templars. Well, not really face-to-face, since the Templars were wearing the usual buckets. Nonetheless, they were stopped, and things seemed about to go pear-shaped.

  "Stop there!" demanded the taller of the two. "Amaryllis Hawke? You have been reported as a suspected mage. Come along with us."

  There was a collective gasp of horror, and everyone prepared to go for their weapons, right there in the Chantry.

  Everyone but Sirius, who already had his wand in his hand, and with a little mystic gesture and smirk, cast the confundus charm on both Templars.

  "She's not the mage you're looking for," he said, voice thrumming with confidence.

  The taller one repeated after him, his voice dull. "She's not the mage we're looking for."

  Sirius prompted him again. "You don't need to talk to her."

  "We don't need to talk to her."

  "She can go about her business."

  "She can go about her business."

  Sirius grinned, bursting with mischief. He and James had pulled the Jedi mind trick on a pair of muggle policemen back in 1979. It never got old.

  "She should move along," he hinted.

  Stolidly, the Templar echoed him. "Move along... move along."

  Smothering their laughter, the wedding party hurried from the Chantry to the waiting bacchanal at the Hanged Man. Varric was not surprised by any trick of magic, and Isabela approved of tweaking the noses of all authority figures. Prince Sebastian was utterly mystified. AvAstride and Fenris, suspicious and not understanding the joke, frowned, but followed the bridal couple toward free food and drink.