Dragon Age: The Masked Empire

by Patrick Weekes

  “I am thinking about this wondrous place,” she said. “Though I do not see it with your eyes, I can still see so many possibilities.” She glanced over at Briala, smiling. “After we reclaim Orlais, of course.”

  “Of course,” Duke Remache said, glaring at them both. He was working on his armor, like Gaspard. Michel was doing the same, hammering as he did each night on the dents that remained from Mihris’s deadly spell.

  Celene ignored the men and turned back to Briala. “Imagine what we could do, Bria. Imagine nobles making the journey to Val Royeaux in days instead of weeks or months. How many policies have been limited because my commands could only travel at the speed of a messenger’s horse?”

  “Like letting the elves out of the slums?” Briala asked, looking at the crackling flames.

  “Oh, so much bigger than that.” Celene could see it in her mind’s eye. “Trade, Bria. Collecting wisdom at the university. If we could move the eluvians safely, we could put one in every city, and Val Royeaux would never be more than a short walk away from anywhere in the empire.”

  Briala chuckled, but Celene knew it was forced from the way she took a tiny breath in before the laugh. It was deliberate, not spontaneous, and Briala’s beautiful big eyes did not tighten with laugh lines as they should have. The ring on Celene’s finger, the gift from Lady Mantillon that helped her see an enemy’s weaknesses in a fight, sharpened her wits as well, letting her see details she might otherwise miss. “I confess,” Briala said, “I can see little beyond the liberty of my people.”

  “Oh, your empress has plans for your people.” Gaspard didn’t look up from tightening the strap on his greave. “Moving them out of the slums and down here into the tunnels as her own little spy network.”

  Celene sniffed. “After a lifetime in our slums, the elves of Orlais might enjoy seeing their ancient history, as our elven companions have. Given how pleasant it seems for the elves, I imagine such an arrangement could benefit everyone.” She looked across the room where Mihris and Felassan were examining old runes on the wall, with a bored Lienne standing beside them.

  “Well, you would, now, wouldn’t you, Your Radiance?” Remache asked, looking at Briala.

  “Taking the elves out of the slums only to make them her personal assassins.” Gaspard smiled and shook his head. “That will bring a few of the nobles over to my side, I imagine.”

  “As you will be resting in the arms of the Maker by then, it should concern you not at all,” Celene said dryly, and Gaspard laughed and reached out for the bread.

  Briala passed over the piece she had been toasting. “If Her Imperial Majesty has the love and support of every elf in every city in the empire, the nobles will not dare move against her.” She smiled at Gaspard. “We may be mere insects, Grand Duke, but so are wasps. A wise man avoids poking their nest.”

  Gaspard took the bread. “Of course he does. A wise man gets rid of wasps with smoke. Or fire.” He took a big crunching bite of the bread, and nodded. “This is good.”

  “You think I have forgotten Halamshiral,” Briala said, her voice tight and angry, “that you might divide me from Celene with a reminder? I remember that you caused Halamshiral’s burning.”

  “Empress Celene would not have attacked the city had you not forced her,” Michel said, looking up from his work to meet Gaspard’s stare.

  “True. But that’s not what Briala said in that wagon outside the city,” Gaspard said, and took another bite of the bread. “As I recall, she even knew what I was going to do, and failed to warn Celene.”

  “I would hardly have listened,” Celene said, even as she glanced at Briala in surprise. “All that matters is that the elves will live better lives when we are done here.”

  “Better lives.” Remache scowled. “You make deals with gutter trash.”

  “Thing is,” Gaspard said to Celene, ignoring Remache, “most elves? Not the Dalish, not your handmaid, but most of them? They don’t care about living in the alienages … or in the slums, in Halamshiral. They don’t care about what a grand duke or an empress call liberty. They care about having a roof over their heads and food on the table. When you make your bold proclamation, the nobles will twist and turn and find a way to forget about the elves.”

  “Then we will remind them.” Briala looked at Gaspard, and then at Celene.

  Celene took her hand without hesitation. “I will do right for your people, Bria. I swear it.”

  Briala’s hand tightened in hers, and Gaspard and Remache turned away uncomfortably as Celene leaned against her more closely. Michel went back to his armor, appearing not to notice.

  In the firelight, Celene could see starving elves and rioting common folk, angry nobles sending chevaliers in too quickly for even her to stop them. She could see the imperial soldiers coming to burn the homes of the merchants who protested their elven competition, the elves turning to banditry and rebellion when their first taste of freedom left them wanting more too quickly.

  She could see her empire burning. The fire was set already. All she could hope to control was who was consumed in the blaze.

  16

  It had been four nights, by Ser Michel’s count. Four nights of eating the dried meat Gaspard produced or the tough bread Felassan had taken from the Dalish camp. Four nights of sleeping on hard stone after walking all day in armor that was still not fully repaired after the damage Mihris had caused. Gaspard had ordered her to heal Michel’s injuries, and her touch had burned icy cold as she had done it, staring at Michel with blazing hatred.

  Four nights of watching stony-eyed as his empress shared a blanket with Briala.

  “Odd to see that empresses share beds just like everyone, isn’t it?” came the quiet question that night, and Michel turned to see Gaspard sitting a few paces away. He was working carefully to smooth over a small tear in his breastplate, at least as much as was possible with only field tools. Unlike the dents in Michel’s armor, the tear could actually catch a blade if it wasn’t fixed.

  Michel had been sharpening his blade, and he turned back to his work. “A little, my lord.”

  “Maker, Michel, you don’t have feelings for her yourself?” Gaspard asked with a soft laugh.

  “No.” Michel chuckled as well. “Though I cherish our empress, I do not think of her that way. I heard a few too many tales in my youth of chevaliers doomed by tragic love, dying from mistakes committed in the heat of jealousy or passion.”

  “I’d rather go at the hands of the cursed darkspawn.” Gaspard scoured the long scratch on his breastplate. “Let me know if you need polishing oil.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Michel traced the length of his blade, found a nick, and went to work. Back in Val Royeaux, he would have thrown out a blade with such an imperfection, or at most asked the weaponsmith to reforge it. Here in the halls of the elven dead, he did not have such a luxury. After a minute of work, he added, “I can hardly judge. I have shared my bed with the occasional peasant girl. Why should the empress be any different?”

  “Granted.” Gaspard grunted, putting all his weight into buffing the armor, then looked at it critically. “If that’s all it is.”

  The nick in the blade was going to catch the first time Michel locked blades with anything solid. Grimacing, Michel pulled out the whetstone. Silverite was hard enough that it was difficult to sharpen once it lost its incredible edge, and if done incorrectly, it could ruin the blade. “And am I supposed to admit my misgivings, my lord, and turn myself over to your cause?”

  “I’d kill you here and now if you did,” Gaspard said without hesitation. “We are chevaliers, sworn to honor and duty. And you have sworn yourself as her champion.”

  “You had little enough concern for honor when you started rumors against her.”

  “I did what the empire needed.” Gaspard ran a finger down his breastplate, frowning. “I fought to win. What do they say at the Academie? Honor does not preclude—”

  “—tactics,” Michel said, finishing the old lesson, “
and glory is not won through foolishness. Yes, my lord.”

  “Celene has always been a master of the Game. Maker’s breath, that’s how she ended up on that throne in the first place. I played only within the limitations of the rules she set out.” Gaspard sighed. “Truth be told, my greatest regret was using that bard against you. You know, I had her try to find anything she could to smear your name.”

  The memory of Melcendre taunting Michel in the warehouse chilled his blood. But he had watched the Game for long enough to know that if he asked what Gaspard knew, he would be giving away that fear. He shrugged instead. “As you said, my lord, you played the Game. It is based upon rumor and innuendo. And in this regard, I am fortunate to have led such a dull life.”

  “Even so, Ser Michel, it was unworthy of one chevalier to another, and you have my apology.” Gaspard smiled. “When we find this chamber, our truce will end, and we will do our best to kill each other upon the field of battle. You know it, and I know it, but we will fight with honor, unencumbered by the Game, by gossip or lies. As two men who know themselves and wear that knowledge proudly for all the world to see.”

  Gaspard didn’t know. Michel had been certain that the grand duke would have used the information earlier, before his attack at Halamshiral, but some part of him had always wondered, waiting for Gaspard to strike.

  He remembered the immediate pounding of his blood, the hot rush of strength that demanded Melcendre’s death when she threatened him with what she knew.

  A tiny tension at the base of his skull, there for so long that he had forgotten it was even there, relaxed with a cool wash of relief across his spirit. He was free. He could live and die as Ser Michel de Chevin.

  “Yes, my lord,” he said, and returned to polishing out the imperfections in his weapon.

  The next day, after walking one more Maker-damned path, they walked through the eluvian and stepped out into a great circular hall that was larger than anything they had seen before.

  It was lit by great golden braziers that burned with magical fire, like the small flame Briala had used to toast bread last night. All around the wall, enormous support columns had been carved into the shapes of elves in armor or holding staffs. They flanked dozens of eluvians, and above the points of the great mirrors, enormous monstrous shapes had been carved into the ceiling as well. Michel saw demons, dragons, and things for which he had no name.

  The floor of the great hall had been carved into a gently sloping bowl shape. Along the upper slopes, fine marble benches looked down onto the interior. Below, runes had been traced into the floor in a pattern Michel could not understand, twisting spidery shapes overlapping each other, some looking like stylized creatures, others patterns that could have been fire or lightning, and still others simple geometric forms that twisted in directions that made no sense. They reminded him of the runes from the path, but they did not burn with the same brilliant light, and something in the shape was different, though he could not say what.

  In the middle of the hall, in the center of the great circle of runes, a great stone pedestal stood, its surface bare except for one spot in the middle, shaped precisely like the ruby that Celene had been given by the demon Imshael. Until that moment, Michel had half wondered if the demon had just sent them here to die.

  “Impressive,” Gaspard said. His voice echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the walls. “Knock the points off the ears on those columns, and it wouldn’t be out of place in Val Royeaux.”

  “This was no burial chamber,” Briala said, and Michel noted with a little tingle of worry that her voice didn’t echo. “Felassan, what was this? The funeral hall?”

  The elves had all gotten to the room well before Michel and the others, and Briala and Mihris looked awed by the extravagance. Felassan alone looked unimpressed.

  “In part,” he said. “But the faithful also would come here in supplication.”

  “To what? Your heathen gods?” Remache asked, the scar on his cheek twisting as he sneered.

  “Our elders, who had entered uthenara.” If Felassan was offended by Remache’s interruption, he did not show it. “Supplicants would walk the labyrinth,” he said, gesturing at the twisting mass of runes, “and the songs say that if they were worthy, they would find the answers they sought in their dreams that night.”

  “Walk the…” Remache stared at the runes encircling the pedestal. “Is there some pattern to that?”

  “Oh, you cannot see it?” Felassan asked, and smiled. “Perhaps you are unworthy.”

  Remache put his hand to his sword, then stopped at Gaspard’s curt gesture.

  “I take it you can see the path through that mess?” At Felassan’s nod, Gaspard turned to Celene. “Then it would seem, cousin, that our truce is nearing its end.” He stepped away from her, and though he did not draw his blade yet, his stance was ready for a fight. “We have the key to awakening the eluvians in our grasp. If I win, my elf walks me through. If you win, one of yours does. The only question I see is how you wish to settle this. Do we unleash more magic and risk waking up another Maker-cursed demon trying to kill each other, or do your champion and mine fight like men?”

  Michel placed himself between Celene and Gaspard, and without looking back over his shoulder, said, “Majesty?” Mihris had already stepped to Gaspard’s side, staring at Michel with eager anticipation, while Briala was stepping out to a position that would give her a clean shot at Lienne or Mihris.

  Remache looked from Celene to Gaspard, eyes narrowed in thought, and Michel noted it and reminded himself that when it came to blows, he would kill Remache as quickly as he could. The lord had skill with a blade and no chevalier’s code to restrain him, and he would doubtlessly wait for the battle to start, then come in and attack by surprise where he could do the most damage.

  Before Celene could say anything, though, Lienne interjected.

  “No. No, we do not have the eluvians. We have nothing. Something awakens, something old and angry.”

  Gaspard spared her a look. “Lienne, if you have something to say—”

  “I sense magic bound to service. I can feel it, my lord. It is…” Lienne’s eyes were wide, and she looked around as if searching. Then she frowned. “It is all around us. Or…” She looked up.

  With a great roar of crashing stone, the ceiling came down upon them.

  * * *

  As soon as Briala heard the roaring noise, she was moving, diving without pause under the nearest of the marble benches. She heard cries of pain as stone slammed down upon those who hadn’t moved fast enough.

  Even as Briala tucked herself under the bench, she was listening.

  The stone crashed down, a rumble that shook her belly and jolted her through the ground.

  But it wasn’t a cave-in, she realized. Cave-ins didn’t restrict themselves to certain areas.

  And they didn’t walk.

  She rolled out, bringing her bow up, and saw what looked like a great stone column fallen from the fantastical creatures carved into the ceiling. Only as it lifted itself from a crushed marble bench did her eyes notice the great claws at the base of the column and, with a wrench of perspective, transform it into a stone-armored leg taller than she was.

  The creature was massive but slender for its great size, a narrow body perched on five long legs that were barbed and segmented like an insect’s. A tiny torso sprouted two clawed arms that were no longer than a man’s, and ended in an eyeless head whose stone-fanged maw hung open as the creature hissed and scented the air.

  Briala took all this in in an instant as she dove away and launched an arrow into the creature’s chest, hoping that the smaller area would be weaker. The arrow shattered on the stone hide.

  Faster than should have been possible for something so huge, the thing swung her way, and a great armored leg smashed down, crushing the marble stones as Briala dove away. “Felassan, what is it?”

  “Varterral!” he called back, even as Briala saw Remache and Michel charge the creature. �
�Very bad! Very very bad!”

  Felassan wasn’t attacking yet. Perhaps he had a reason, or perhaps he knew that the thing was too strong. As the armored leg smashed down near Briala again, she leaped to safety, spun, and shot an arrow at the nearest leg, aiming for the joints. Again, the shot glanced harmlessly off the stone armor. Michel and Remache hacked at other legs on the far side of its body with little success.

  The varterral smashed its legs into the ground, and the stone heaved beneath Briala’s feet. Michel and Remache flew back, landing with a crash of metal, and Mihris, her face deathly pale behind her curving tattoos, stepped forward, her staff raised. Gaspard, shaking his head, was beside her, and Lienne stood behind him, her staff glowing with magic that hummed around Gaspard as well.

  “Wait!” Felassan shouted. Briala risked a quick look and saw that he had climbed onto a bench. “Get to high ground and stay your hand!”

  Gaspard looked at him in shock. “Are you serious?”

  “Now!” The varterral hissed and snapped its jaws in Gaspard’s direction, and a spray of acid sizzled through the air. Gaspard’s shield snapped up and caught the deadly spray, and the grand duke hopped nimbly onto a bench, then held out a hand and helped Lienne up. His shield smoked and sputtered where the acid had landed.

  Briala rolled backward to put some ground between her and the creature and sprang back onto a bench. Off to the side, Celene was doing the same, and Briala saw Michel and Remache clamber up as well.

  For a moment, nobody moved. The varterral twisted in place, opening its monstrous maw even wider as it scented the air. It turned on its five long legs, surprisingly nimble, and scratched at the ground. It seemed confused, though Briala could only guess at its emotions given the varterral’s monstrous eyeless face.