Asunder

by David Gaider

  "He isn't dead," Cole said.

  Wynne stared at him in astonishment. "What . . . did you say?"

  "Rhys is hurt. They put him in the dungeon, but I can't get him out. There’s too many templars there, now." He paused, looking at both of them uncertainly. "That's why I came looking for you. I can't help him alone."

  "Why would you do anything at all?"

  He squirmed. "Rhys always wanted to help me. I don't know why he did, but he did. Everything that's happened to him is my fault. I have to do something."

  Wynne stared at him. Then she shook her head, ashamed. "I am an old fool. I acted without thinking, doing all the things I've cautioned other mages against. I . . . hope you can forgive me, young man. What I did was . . . inexcusable."

  "You're Rhys's mother," he said simply. "My mother tried to protect me, too."

  "And did she succeed?"

  "No. She died." Cole's face twisted with grief. He backed away from them, stumbling once as he hit the tunnel wall. There he crouched down, placing his head between his knees and his hands over his head. Like he was shutting down.

  Evangeline knelt beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder, whispering soothing things. Her father had done that. Just the once, the day her mother died. Even wrapped up in his own grief, he couldn't stand to watch his daughter in pain. She imagined he'd felt as helpless as she did right now.

  "I . . . attacked you as well, Ser Evangeline," the old woman said. "I can't even—"

  "Templars guard the mages, remember?" Evangeline interrupted. "Even if it's from themselves. I may not believe in the order, but that doesn't mean I stopped believing in what we stood for."

  Wynne looked at her strangely, as if seeing her for the first time. "I think I know what Rhys sees in you, Ser Evangeline."

  "Just save him." Evangeline stood up, and Cole stood with her. He suddenly seemed calm, as if he'd never broken down at all. That wall Cole put up around himself was there again. It made her sad, but there was nothing she could do. "If we're going to do this, we need a sensible plan," she said. "Running around half- cocked and full of rage isn't going to help anyone. We have to find a way into the dungeon that won't have the entire White Spire blocking our way out."

  "I know a way in," Cole said.

  Both women stared at him.

  "There are old places in the Pit," he continued, "places nobody even knows about. Some of the walls are crumbled, and you can get into the sewers. That's how I got here."

  Evangeline smiled, her thoughts already racing ahead of her. There would still be the matter of dealing with what ever guards the Lord Seeker had placed at the dungeons, not to mention the deadly traps protecting it, but if they could get inside without assaulting the front entrance . . .

  "I know what we're going to do," she said.

  Rhys coughed, and his whole body shook with agony. More blood gurgled into his mouth, the revolting coppery taste making him gag. He spit, and the blood dribbled out onto the cell's stone floor. He spit again, the effort making his stomach clench painfully— so he closed his eyes and waited for the spasm to pass.

  Someone had stabbed him. He remembered that much, a hazy moment shortly before he'd finally succumbed to unconsciousness. One of the templars had loomed over him, a fellow with a large nose— the same one that had been waiting at Adamant. "Now you' ll get what you deserve, all of you," he'd said . . . and then stabbed Rhys. He could still feel the cold blade sliding into his stomach as if it were yesterday.

  Seemed petty, really.

  Why didn't they kill him? They had every justification. He could easily be branded a rebel . . . and it wasn't like his death would make the mages more angry. After that pitched battle in the great hall, the White Spire would either be in open rebellion or in complete lockdown. He could only guess what would happen once the other Circles heard the news. The templars would have their hands full.

  One chop to the neck and everything he knew about Pharamond's work would be gone forever . . . unless that was the point. Perhaps the templars wanted information they thought only he had? If so, they were bound to be disappointed. The elf had explained his theories on making the Tranquility cure work— but little else. There’d been no time.

  The thought of Pharamond made him sad. The elf had experienced a brief moment of release from the awful oblivion that was Tranquility, only to be murdered in his chambers while waiting for his sentence to be carried out.

  It couldn't have been Cole. The dagger that the Lord Seeker had thrown down hadn't been Cole's, and why would Cole use another? That meant the templars had executed Pharamond and purposefully framed Rhys for it. Whenever they came to speak to him, he'd find out why.

  Cole. . . . Sometime recently he'd awoken in the cell and seen Cole crouching over him. At the time he'd thought it another fever dream, brought on by his injuries. Indeed, he'd imagined Evangeline there, and Wynne. Even Adrian. An entire array of people parading through his cell to either pity or accuse him in turn. Of them all, however, Cole had seemed the most plausible.

  "I'll get you out of here, I promise."

  Had that been what Cole said to him? Rhys could hardly be confident. He hoped it wasn't true. He didn't want Cole risking himself any more than he wanted Wynne or Evangeline doing so. They should leave, get as far away from Val Royeaux as they could before what ever came next swallowed them whole.

  Because something was coming. The rebellion in Kirkwall would be nothing compared to this. He'd seen several first enchanters slain, and the rest of them . . . ? It didn't even matter now, did it?

  There was a noise at the cell door. A key turning in the lock. Rhys tried to push himself up, and managed to do so only with an accompanying jab of agony. He waited in the darkness, staring at where the light would momentarily be blinding him.

  It didn't disappoint. With a great clang, the metal door swung open and a great flood of light filled the room. Rhys closed his eyes, waiting to let the glare stop being so painful, and instead listened as several pairs of heavy, booted feet tromped in.

  So this was it. An execution, then? Or something else?

  "Leave us," a voice said.

  The boots left without comment, slamming the door shut behind them. Rhys opened his eyes again, blinking away the swirl of afterimages and focusing on the figure standing before him. It was a man in armor, holding a glowlamp . . . and its gentle blue light revealed him to be the Lord Seeker.

  The man looked down at Rhys with contempt.

  "You're awake. Good." The Lord Seeker hung the glowlamp on the wall and sat down in a chair— brought in, Rhys assumed, as he didn't remember noticing it before. Of course, in the utter darkness of his cell the chair could have been right by his head and he wouldn't have noticed it then, either.

  "What? No cookies? I'm disappointed."

  The Lord Seeker ignored him. "We're going to talk, you and I. It seems past time that we did."

  Rhys burst into laughter, but it was interrupted by a bloody coughing fit. "Talk?" he finally managed. "I'd rather the execution. It'd be less painful, and frankly, why should I be more special than everyone else?"

  The Lord Seeker's smile was patient, but it didn't touch his eyes. "There have been no executions. All who didn't perish in the great hall have joined you in imprisonment . . . as have many others. I daresay the White Spire's dungeons haven't been this full in ages."

  "You're going to keep us all here?"

  He leaned back in the chair, folding his arms and staring at Rhys sternly. "What happens to the others depends entirely on you."

  "What do you want?"

  "A confession."

  "Very well. I confess: I'm a mage."

  "Don't be a fool."

  Rhys snorted. "I didn't kill Pharamond. You must know that."

  "Must I?" The Lord Seeker raised a disapproving brow. "I imagine you'll tell me it was the 'invisible man,' yes? Cole, is it? He murdered this Pharamond as he murdered the other mages?"

  Rhys felt a chill run down hi
s spine. At some level he'd hoped the templars would forget about Cole, just like everyone else. Learning about him from Evangeline might mean that wasn't going to happen now. "Cole didn't kill Pharamond," he said. "At least, he didn't do it with that dagger."

  "Are you certain?" The Lord Seeker leaned close, making Rhys recoil. Those grey eyes seemed to bore into him with their intensity, and was it . . . concern? There was concern there as well, though whether it was for Rhys or something else he really couldn't imagine. The idea that this man might feel sympathy for anything seemed laughable. "What do you believe Cole is, exactly?"

  "A mage who was brought to the tower, and then lost."

  "With abilities never before recorded, outside of blood magic?"

  "He's not a blood mage."

  "Perhaps he's not. Where did you see him first?" When Rhys didn't answer, the Lord Seeker stood up from the chair. Pacing around the small cell, he continued. "Here in the tower, I suspect. Perhaps glimpses of a stranger that nobody else could see? It took you seeking him out to actually speak with him, however."

  "I'm not the only one who's seen him. Evangeline, for instance."

  "She saw him in the Fade first, however."

  "Yes, but he followed us . . ."

  "Did he? Followed you halfway across the Empire? Somehow keeping pace with you the entire way without you once spotting him? And let me guess: the first time you did see him, you were seeking him out." He stopped pacing, giving Rhys an incredulous look. "Come now, Enchanter. You're a clever man. I figured you to have better reasoning than this."

  "Cole isn't a demon," Rhys objected, but suddenly he wasn't so certain. He'd rejected the idea plenty of times. When he spoke with Cole, his gut said the young man was real, a lost soul who needed help. As human as he. But still a doubt lingered . . .

  No! He's trying to trick you! This was just one more attempt to twist him about. He only wanted a confession— whatever good that did him.

  "Allow me to refresh your memory." The Lord Seeker reached behind the chair and picked up a tome from the floor. Rhys recognized it: one of the volumes he'd written during his years researching spirits, no doubt rescued from some corner of the archives where it languished. Rhys had barely thought of his research since he discontinued it a year ago, and thus it was surprising to see now . . . and even more surprising that the Lord Seeker had bothered to dig it up.

  The man walked over to the glowlamp and flipped through several pages until he found the one he wanted. "Demons often become confused when they pass through the Veil," he read. "They find themselves in a world they have no control over, and no connection to. They seek out such connections, possessing what ever they can see and touch, and seek to make it conform to the world they left behind— a world embodied by concepts and emotion rather than immutable reality. They subsume themselves in the world of the living, and this is what drives them mad."

  He snapped the book shut and looked inquisitively at Rhys, but said nothing. Rhys felt uneasy. "You're saying Cole is a confused spirit, but that doesn't—"

  "Tell me," the Lord Seeker interrupted, "when did the murders begin? Before or after you first met Cole?"

  Rhys hesitated. "After."

  "Why not before? How long did Cole claim he'd lived in the tower?"

  "I . . . don't know. Years, I think."

  "So for years he lived in the tower, out of sight and forgotten, and never felt the need to murder anyone until he met you." The Lord Seeker shrugged, replacing the book behind the chair. "That's certainly possible. Did he say why he killed these people?"

  "Because he felt like he was fading away, but—"

  "Fading away. As if he lacked a connection to our world, and the killings somehow strengthened it." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and Rhys felt even more uneasy than before. He would have expected threats, condemnation . . . anything but this. "Blood magic is the manipulation of life energy," he continued, "the strongest source of mana and the only one forbidden to mages. Such life energy could provide a spirit the connection it needed, no matter how temporarily?"

  Rhys nodded slowly.

  "But only a mage can perform blood magic. So either this Cole has possessed the body of some unfortunate soul and is an abomination, and thus able to use that body's magic, or he is a disembodied spirit trying desperately to maintain a connection to our world, his only power the ability to influence the minds of others." The Lord Seeker spread his hands. "The question is: Which one are we dealing with?"

  "What if he's neither of those things?" Rhys asked. He sat up again, wincing as a jab of pain lanced through his chest. "And even if he is, what would this have to do with my confession? If Cole is a spirit and you know it, then why accuse me of murder?"

  The Lord Seeker nodded, as if this were an excellent question. "You're a compassionate man, Enchanter. Always willing to help those in need. It's made you quite popular." His eyes narrowed as he looked pointedly at Rhys. "It must have been quite distressing to encounter a young man so desperate and alone."

  "But I would never—"

  "Only you could help him. You couldn't tell anyone else, for fear of what they might assume, and no one else could see the lad. Why you could, who knows? Coincidence, perhaps. Some aspect of your own talents you were unaware of."

  It sounded eerily familiar. Rhys said nothing.

  "What would you do to help this poor young man, I wonder? Blood magic could help him, and only you can do that. Seek out some imprisoned mage, so eager to die you could even call it mercy, draw the life force from them—"

  "But I didn't do that!" Rhys shouted.

  The Lord Seeker stared at him knowingly. "The spirit chose you. You encountered many during your research. They would know who you are, and could follow you back to the tower. That's why you see him."

  "No!"

  "I've searched the records high and low. They contain the details of every apostate found, the orders given to bring them to the Circle, testimony from the templars sent . . . there is nothing for a boy named Cole, or anyone by his description. You can choose to believe this young man's abilities extend to erasing records, or you can accept that Cole never existed in the first place."

  Rhys twisted to look away. He couldn't stand it. His heart pounded, and all he wanted to do was scream No! You're wrong! But now Rhys was besieged by doubt. If Cole could make people forget him, what if he could make them forget other things? What if Rhys had agreed to help? What if he'd let Cole in, opened his mind up just enough for a single evening? And then forgotten. Could it be?

  The Lord Seeker leapt forward and grabbed Rhys by the throat. The steel gauntlets pressed painfully into his skin as the man forced Rhys to look at him. Those grey eyes burned now, his patience at an end. "Confess," he demanded. "You will tell the first enchanters you have been under the influence of a demon. You killed the elf, killed all of them, and unwittingly empowered this demon to manipulate the mages of this tower."

  "And if I don't?" Rhys said between gritted teeth.

  "Then you will die." He released his grip, stepping back once again. Rhys collapsed to the ground, coughing and choking, the agony in his chest almost too much to bear. "The first enchanters will be executed, as will Enchanter Adrian and any other mages we've imprisoned. We cannot abide rebellion, and I will either find a solution or deal with it however I must."

  Rhys laughed. It was a wheezing, weak laughter coupled with painful gasps, but he couldn't help himself. More blood filled his mouth, and he spit it out, but still he couldn't stop laughing. The Lord Seeker stared at him in disbelief, his expression slowly changing to fury. "Is something amusing?" he demanded.

  "You almost had me convinced," Rhys chuckled. He rolled over, sweating profusely from the exertion, and shakily pushed himself up. The Lord Seeker did not appear impressed by his efforts.

  Slowly Rhys's mirth subsided. He wiped his mouth and looked at the Lord Seeker seriously. "Even if Cole is what you believe," he said, "I doubt he knows it. He most certainly isn't manip
ulating the entire tower. If you're looking for someone to take the blame, look somewhere else."

  "But you did murder those people."

  "Or you framed me, precisely so we could have this conversation." Rhys smiled sweetly. "I guess we'll never know."

  The Lord Seeker paused. He looked at Rhys speculatively, and Rhys wondered if he shouldn't take it back. What if he was a murderer, and Cole a demon? He was dead either way; at least confessing would spare the lives of everyone else.

  But spare them for what? Tranquility? Feed them a lie, so they could go on swallowing everything else the templars chose to heap upon them? Deep down, Rhys didn't believe it. He couldn't. Cole was what he appeared to be, and so was the Lord Seeker: a man grasping at straws to keep the Circle of Magi from crumbling around his ears.

  "As you wish," the Lord Seeker said. He turned and left, taking the glowlamp with him. The moment the cell door slammed shut, Rhys was left once again in darkness.

  Maker help me, he prayed. Don't let them try to save me. Tell them to run and save themselves. And then he closed his eyes, suddenly shaking from pure exhaustion. And help Cole. Wherever he is, what ever he is, I believe he means well.

  I believe it.

  Chapter 20

  "I preferred the tower in Ferelden," Shale muttered.

  Wynne snorted. "How can you say that?" she whispered. "The one and only time you were in Ferelden's tower, it was half- filled with abominations and corruption of every kind."

  "It was an improvement."

  "Quiet, you two!" Evangeline hissed. Trying to remain quiet with the golem accompanying them was challenging enough without the two of them chattering. How Wynne had managed to find Shale, Evangeline couldn't imagine. After reaching Montsimmard, the golem had followed them to the capital— where it had spent its time terrorizing the local pigeons, evidently. Stealthy or not, she imagined it would prove quite useful with what lay ahead.

  Things had gone smoothly so far. They’d entered the tower through an ancient section of the sewer system— that the tunnels had ever connected to the White Spire was clearly long forgotten. Evangeline had certainly never known about it, and the decrepit ruins in the deepest part of the Pit hadn't seen human traffic in centuries. It wasn't an easy way to enter, either, requiring near submersion in brackish waters and scaling half a mortar wall she was certain would crumble.