“Guardsman!”
Audric barely deflected the golem’s next sweep. The creaking monster had the strength of a rockslide. He feinted to the side. A second set of arms unfolded from the golem’s chest, clutching knives. Audric parried the first, dodged the second. The main glaive swung back like a pendulum—
Warm dizziness, a rush of cool stone.
Audric gasped. They were in a room of smooth, dark green walls and tiny candles cupped in yellow glass. He could hear the golem stomping somewhere above them, glaive scraping the floor. A bony form in a deep shelf of the room stirred at the sound. It looked at them reproachfully, then rolled back to its rest.
The guardsman pushed himself up with a scrape. “Thank you, madam,” he said. There was something subtly wrong about the depth of the place. Floor-length Serault-glass mirrors, fixed in the green. See how the candles look like hovering stars …
Myrna shook her head, brushing off her dress. “Your endangerment is directly related to my folly.”
“No! You, um … you came for me, madam.”
“As I should.”
The sound of the golem faded. Either it had stopped, or wandered away. Audric patted himself down. “Would’ve been easy to leave me. Um. So thank you, again.”
His hand jutted against something cold.
“Guardsman?”
“Sorry. Something’s, I don’t know what—”
“Guardsman.” Myrna sounded regretful. Audric felt a sudden, inexplicable pang as she continued: “I’m afraid this must be now.”
“What must?” Audric heard a strain in his voice. “What’s now?”
“Look down.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Look down.”
Audric looked. The broken blade of the glaive was lodged straight through his dry, unbloodied, unbreathing chest.
“Oh.”
* * *
The Chantry sisters that had schooled Audric were also Nevarran. The nation’s orthodoxy accepted that the Grand Necropolis was a fitting resting place for the bodies of all good souls destined to sit by the side of the Maker. The metaphysics of what would happen to his flesh, however, had been handwaved. The spirit that would be placed there was not their providence, the sisters said. The city’s necromancers would tend to that after his final hour came.
Audric felt somehow cheated he was still conscious after it had happened.
* * *
“When?” he demanded. “How … how long have I been … has this…”
“Guardsman Audric Felhausen died of his wounds after Lord Karn’s funeral.” Myrna sounded apologetic. “His body arose the next morning, and went to his old post. Your captain was at a loss. As you were intestate, she sent you to us to ease your passage.”
“I’m not dead,” Audric said as he grabbed at the blade in his chest. “I’m myself. I’m not a spirit, I’m … I’m me!” Audric staggered as the blade came out with a sickening crunch. Flakes of—oh Maker—dried blood came out with it.
“You are not quite what you were, if that’s who you still aim to be.”
“Please! Stop … stop talking like that.” Audric trembled. How could the dead—no, not yet—tremble?
“Have you noticed your thoughts growing circular? Tell me about your life outside your love of art, Audric. Expound on any other topic.”
“I’m … I can think just fine.” His own hands. If he took off a gauntlet, what would he see? “I’m Audric Felhausen, not some spirit going … using his body for a stroll!”
“What have you thought since we embarked?” Myrna asked patiently. “What’s impressed itself?”
The style of the place. The buildings, the frescoes, the statues! And Karn, always back to Karn.
“Many things,” he said weakly. Myrna’s look sliced clean through him.
“The truth, Guardsman Audric.”
He’d loved his books. He’d never had any pretentions to being a scholar; he’d simply wanted to collect and read for its own sake. After work, after a few drinks with the other guards he’d slip away shyly to his apartment and read by lamplight and fire. He’d loved the comfortable silence of those nights, loved them more than anything else …
Audric lurched over to a mirror. A hollow face sagged back at him.
He groaned, and the sound, he now realized, was of a piece with the dead around him. His vision grew dim with a dry, throat-closing anger. This had been his life! And there’d been so little of it! Karn, that demon, whatever that thing was, had ended it without a thought. Audric wanted to rend the man limb from crackling limb, imagined raking his hands across that face, tearing everything and anything at all—
A glove clamped his shoulder. He felt the warmth of a living hand.
“You will not lose yourself.” The voice was stern, a warning shackle. “I forbid it. You are suited for better things than rage.”
For a moment Audric saw his body, Myrna, and the green stonework from above, as if he hovered a length outside them all. Then more of himself slid back into place. His sight grew clearer.
“You brought me here to watch me,” he said, quietly bitter.
“The Mourn Watch assists both the dead and the living. We wish to help you resolve what you are.”
“What’s that?”
“Driven.” Myrna squeezed his shoulder more consolingly, then stepped away. “An entity as complete as you are is rare. Some of my colleagues argue the ‘higher dead’ such as yourself do, in fact, hold fast to their mortal souls. Others attest that this is impossible. They would say you are caught between two spirits: anger and curiosity. Whatever the case, you are unbalanced. Confronting Karn with you was my remedy.”
Audric let the glaive fall with a clatter. There was another groan from the nook in the wall.
“But Karn’s golem crushed the talisman.” Myrna looked up, as if replaying the scene. “I cannot find him easily now.”
“He mentioned honor,” Audric said. It felt easier to think, strangely, now that he realized the body—my body—wasn’t receiving leftover ideas about needing to breathe. The dizziness that had come on him was gone. “Er … He also said something about a challenge.”
“It could be anything. A spirit of Pride would fasten onto something crucial to Lord Karn’s dignity.”
“So, you don’t think he’s gone to the Winged Halls? To finish his duel with the man who killed him? Duke Janus?” Audric asked.
Myrna slowly closed her eyes.
“It just … it seems likely to me, madam.”
It was a moment before she spoke. “You will excuse me. I am cataloging all the ways I’ve been a fool.”
Audric considered that. “I don’t think so, madam. I mean, I’d still like to find Lord Karn.” He picked up his spear, dented but miraculously unbroken. “I won’t … don’t know if I I can stop myself from trying to fight him. I’ll try.”
“Good.” Myrna sent a mote of light into the nook in the wall. A moment later, a skeleton fell out, hissing and snapping. Myrna snagged it with a collar of green fire, tugged it like a leash.
“Does that … hurt it?” Audric asked, more sympathetic to the shambling thing than he’d been a minute ago.
“The sensations differ. With some of the dead, one must exert direct control.”
The skeleton subsided, making a strange whine. “A message,” the Mourn Watcher told it. “Find Professor Emmrich Volkahrin. Tell him after some last business in the Winged Halls, we’ll be joining him above without delay.”
* * *
A large figure in golden armor hacked the last lock off an enormous mausoleum gate. It held out a hand, and the doors burst inward. The Van Markham tombs were spacious as mansions, ceilings carved with knights fighting dragons, rivers of wine pouring from goblets, all circling a skull over a throne.
The horror shuffled to the first tomb, the most recently deceased of the line. It placed a proprietary hand upon the lid.
“The Triumphs of the Flower of Nevarran Chivalry i
n Stone!”
Karn whirled, eyes bleeding a purple light so deep it almost pulsed black. Audric gaped at the ceiling, and rasped: “Commissioned by King Caspar himself! I’ve only seen plates!”
“You preposterous nuisance!” Karn stormed out, and swayed when he saw the Mourn Watcher standing quietly beside the door.
“Desecrating one’s own grave is one thing, Lord Karn. Defiling another’s is vulgar.”
“Janus Van Markham owes me a duel.”
“A pantomime. You’ll only wake more of the dead.” Myrna looked at the hacked-off locks with distaste. “I cannot let you draw more spirits here.”
“Let them witness.” Karn’s shadow began to expand, a hulking shape at odds with the human frame holding a sword. The mark of the Pride demon, Audric realized. Karn continued, “The living that slighted me above are next, once Janus relearns his place.”
“He’s dead!” Audric shouted, his words echoing around the chamber. “What do … why could you care? You already killed each other!”
Karn brought his gaze back to the guardsman. The imprint of a larger presence swirled around the undead lord like an invisible storm of ash. “What would you know of the price of higher stations?”
Audric felt his rage rush back at once. Whatever he was, dead man or imitation of a dead man, he knew what following it would mean. Survival, fury, perhaps oblivion when Myrna put him down. Internment in this city of the dead.
But see how the vines of that ceiling curve around to turn into flowers.
“You slew me at your funeral.” Audric hefted his spear. “You owe me a duel first, Lord Karn.”
“Only one of noble blood—”
“Has killed today,” Myrna said, equidistant from both men. “But perhaps Lord Karn fears to fight.”
Karn was quiet for a heartbeat, then brought up his shield. “Never.”
Karn was suddenly on Audric, slashing. Audric got what he knew was a lucky jab with his spear. It scraped off Karn’s breastplate. The revenant wasn’t as strong as the golem, but Karn was quick, applying the blade with neat, efficient strokes.
“Guardsman!”
“Stay back, Watcher.” Karn spat. “We duel as gentlemen: alone, with the weapons at hand.”
“I’ll … it’ll be fine!” Audric gurgled. He was dimly aware his body wasn’t tiring like a mortal man’s, but it seemed absurdly unfair he could still feel so much fear.
Karn feinted a sweep into a strike, and his sword punctured Audric’s lung; a fatal blow if he’d been breathing. Audric pushed back, slamming his cross guard into Karn’s helmet. Parted, the nobleman circled him, idly spinning his sword into a new stance. The match was his with time.
“I heard your babbling whenever you and the Watcher used that bone to look for me,” Karn spat. “A sad, sad thing, a spirit clinging to the dying curiosity of a man with a mania for baubles. You will die and fade in the marble halls of your betters from every single age.”
“Chalcedony, not marble,” Audric said automatically. “Used in funerary buildings since the reign of Queen Verland.”
“Would you keep quiet about that for one solitary—”
Audric’s spear shot through Karn’s throat, nearly beheading him. Karn shrieked and flung out a hand. An inferno of light blasted Audric across the room.
“You cur! You impudent worm!” Magic dripped from Karn’s fingers. “The Watchers will find nothing of you but ash!”
A lasso of emerald fire whirled neatly around Karn’s neck.
“Using magic breaks your own rules, Lord Karn.” Myrna pulled with one arm. Karn fell back, clawing at his ruined throat. “Your duel is forfeit.”
“You cannot!” Karn buckled and strained against the rope. Audric saw gargantuan shadows twist around Karn, casting the chamber in flickering, thrashing light. The nobleman raised a clawed hand and the rope started to fray, until Audric slashed the hand with his spear. Karn howled, and the rope re-formed, tightening further.
“I can,” Myrna said, nodding at Audric.
Myrna drew Karn in, and Audric harried him, jabbing and slashing before the nobleman could break the rope of fire. A gale rose. The force of the demon inside Karn crackled and flexed against the stone. Myrna calmly continued to pull, looking as if she was exerting no more effort than dragging a small but willful dog.
Finally, she had Karn near enough to touch, his flesh smoldering around the rope. “I did not permit you to duel Audric for your own satisfaction, Lord Karn,” the Mourn Watcher declared.
“What, then?”
“I allowed him,” Myrna said sweetly, “to see that Pride is a cheat.”
Myrna yanked, hard. Karn screamed, suddenly stopped. Audric staggered up to Myrna right as the gaping skull, helmet and all, rolled to his feet.
The jittering shadows settled. The invisible presence that had filled Karn seeped away. The guardsman picked up the silent skull.
What familiar teeth.
And Audric placed it on Karn’s fallen body, feeling nothing but sad relief.
“Excellent.” Myrna tucked a stray hair back into place. “The crypts calm already.”
“What now, madam? With, um…”
“You heard my message to Emmrich.” She crooked a finger, gesturing to Audric. “We’ll be expected. It won’t be difficult to return from here.”
Audric looked around. “I can … I’m allowed to come back with you?”
“Of course.” Myrna lifted her skirts and stepped over a chunk of stone from the fight. “Emmrich will be put out if we don’t both show up for tea.”
* * *
They were back in Emmrich’s den. Audric had been astonished to see familiar tomes in a neat stack on the necromancer’s desk.
“Those … are those…?”
“Yours, yes. From your home.” Emmrich shook his head. “Forgive the liberty, guardsman. After you and Myrna left for the Necropolis, I had to search for a reason you might have returned so unexpectedly.”
“I believe we found it,” Myrna said, from where she was overseeing Emmrich’s skeletal assistant transfer the contents of a bubbling beaker into a bowl.
Emmrich handed the top book to Audric. It was a gazetteer of Nevarra City, stamped with a crowned skull surrounded by flowers. Audric flipped it open and read the blocky inscription.
To our Son with Love. May you be Blessed in your Studies with the Chantry.
“All this effort … for me? I’m just a guardsman, sir.” Am? Was? Audric pushed doubt aside and held the gazetteer to his chest. He existed, knew what he loved, and that he had been loved, and that somehow seemed enough in the moment.
“The great leveler has no favorites.” Emmrich smiled. “Neither does the Mourn Watch.”
“You are faced with a choice,” Myrna said, coming over. “You have confronted your killer, and recognized your driving passion. You may rest now, guardsman.”
“Or?”
“Or you may work under the auspices of a Watcher,” Myrna said. “Under a modicum of magical control. To avoid anomie, the bond must be given freely.”
“To you, madam?”
“If it’s satisfactory.”
The guardsman ducked his head, and because that felt inadequate, knelt on a knee and held out a hand. Myrna, smiling slightly, took it.
Emmrich coughed, looking away. “Please, let the poor fellow up. What position were you thinking?”
“I thought it was obvious.” Audric felt a slow excitement as he heard Myrna say: “We have a great need for someone to take charge of the library.”
THE HORROR OF HORMAK
JOHN EPLER
The horses smelled it first. They were Warden horses, raised around the fetid stench of darkspawn, trained from birth to tolerate their smell and to not spook as easily as most animals. They had stood strong in the face of charging Ogres on more than one occasion.
But mere hours after entering the Nevarran forest, the horses that Wardens Ramesh and Lesha’s small party rode on began to stamp and whinn
y uneasily, clearly frightened.
“Something here they don’t like.” Lesha looked wary. She was a Tevinter mage—confident to the point of cockiness, and not generally prone to fear.
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. Something’s wrong—the whole place feels … broken.” She glanced at Ramesh and added, “Besides, there’s only two of us. Not even a full expeditionary group—we should be waiting for reinforcements.”
Ramesh sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. The hell of it was, he knew exactly what Lesha meant. The air was thick, almost suffocating. It pressed down on them, and there was an acrid quality to it that burned his lungs, though he could not identify exactly what it was.
And she was right about the rules, too. On a rescue mission, you always took more Wardens than you had lost. Ostensibly to carry out the living, but more practically, so you could kill whatever the previous group had not managed to kill. Numbers helped on that front.
But those rules had been written before Adamant, before Ostagar—when they still had the numbers to keep patrols wherever they were needed.
Besides, Senior Warden Jovis’s group was now eight days overdue. Unnecessary risks were not something Ramesh liked to take, but by the time reinforcements came, those eight days would become fifteen. Add another ten to make their way back out this far, and it’d be a month—at which point protocol was to treat them as dead. They could ill afford such losses.
And the other reason. Something unsaid, unfinished, between the two of them. Jovis had meant everything to Ramesh once, but he’d pulled away. Death walked with every Warden, and you learned to bury grief beneath duty. Easier to do that, it seemed, before grief’s edge had been honed by love and friendship. But regret had a weight of its own, and he wished he’d seen that sooner. He shook his head.
“We press on. We’re a half day’s ride from where Jovis’s mining expedition last reported from. Could be they’re fine,” Ramesh added, “but until we get there we won’t know. And if they aren’t fine, and we turn back now? That’s that.” Lesha inclined her head, accepting the gentle rebuke, but the expression of unease never left her face.
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Page 7