Dragon's Era- No Man's Land

by Jacon Winfree

The chamberlain met him, looking wide-eyed and harassed.

  Fergus asked, "When did His Majesty arrive?"

  "Just before dawn, Your Grace. By ship. His...companions...are with him up in the War Room, having breakfast. He said to show you in right away."

  The War Room? Breakfast in the War Room? That sounded rather more like Loghain than Alistair. In Maric and Cailan's day, the Privy Council had often met in the War Room over breakfast. It commanded a fine view of Denerim and the harbor. Eamon had preferred using the more elaborately-furnished Yellow Parlor, and Alistair had continued to use it, even after Eamon's departure. The door opened, revealing a very odd scene indeed.

  "Fergus!" cried Alistair, saluting him with a wine goblet. "I guess I missed the Landsmeet! Join us! Varric… Isabela… this is my friend the Teyrn of Highever. He's my Chancellor, so don't spit on the floor."

  The round table was spread with a feast: joints of beef and ham; platters of cheese, butter, and bread; pyramids of fruit; pickles and preserves; nutcakes and seedcakes and honeycakes. The king was wolfing it all down as if he had not eaten since leaving Ferelden, and washing it down with jugs of red wine and pitchers of golden cider. No one in all Thedas had an appetite like Alistair, King of Ferelden. Fergus had seen that before. He took a moment to assess the King's two companions.

  Varric was a dwarf with a cocky smile and a most intriguing crossbow. Well-to-do, Fergus guessed, from his raffish but expensive garments, but a surfacer, not a deep-downer. Isabela, for her part, wore next to no garments at all, but a great deal of gold. For a terrible moment, she seemed the embodiment of Habren's predicted "foreign tart."

  A Rivainni, he guessed, and a fighter. In addition to her heavy jewelry, she wore thigh-high boots and a pair of daggers, with a white corset and…quite visible smallclothes. Draped over the seat carved with the Redcliffe arms, she lifted a brow at him, and showed her splendid white teeth. If she was the new Queen of Ferelden, she was certainly not one to stand on ceremony.

  "Mistress Isabela. Master Varric," Fergus greeted them with reserved civility. Who were these people?

  "My fault," said Alistair. "It's really Captain Isabela. I came home on her ship. Actually, Isabela traveled with us the whole way. Fergus, I found my father!"

  "King Maric!" Fergus gasped, not knowing whether to hope or fear. "He's alive?"

  "Well… no. He's dead. But he was alive when I found him. But I really saw him. I even talked to him, even if it was only in the Fade. He told me to come back and be a good and proper king."

  "Maybe you could start at the beginning?"

  "Good idea! Varric, you should do most of this." Alistair turned to Fergus. "Varric's a great storyteller. He's written whole books. This'll be his best! Sit down… sit down, and have something. We've got heaps of food and drink."

  "You tell stories?" Fergus asked the dwarf, as he slipped into the Highever seat. Was he a minstrel? A bard?

  "All the time," the dwarf replied. "Some of them are even true."

  It was ridiculously early for wine. Fergus preferred tea in the morning, but there was no sign of it at this table. Isabela winked at him and poured him a cup of cider. She was a very attractive woman indeed. A sea captain? She seemed confident and independent, and was not fawning over Alistair. A comrade-at-arms, then, and not a mistress? Fergus gave her a smile and quiet thanks, as Varric began his tale.

  "It all began with the rumor that King Maric was in Antiva: imprisoned at Velabanchel, the prison of the Crows..."

  A strange tale followed. Alsitair and his friends were able to infiltrate the prison, and learned that Maric had indeed been held there for four years. Afterwards, he had been spirited away by Yavana, the Witch of Wilds—or more specifically, of the Tellari Swamp. She claimed to be a daughter of the legendary Flemeth, and Alistair appeared to credit that.

  "I met Flemeth during the Blight," he interjected into the story. "Her daughter, Morrigan, traveled with us." Unaccountably, he turned bright red. "One of her daughters. Yavana was another. She wanted Maric for her own purposes. I don't know how long he was with her, but probably for some time. It had to do with dragons, and dragonsblood. And the blood of Calenhad. My blood," he added. "Yours, too, so I guess you need to hear all of this."

  As Varric spun the yarn, the witch Yavana was attempting to awaken a nest of hibernating dragons from their enchanted sleep. To do this, she needed the help of a descendent of Calenhad the Great.

  "We learned more of the story later," the dwarf said. "The Arishok of the Grendles told us an interesting story about your King Calenhad. He said that Calenhad fought a dragon and drank his blood, and that gave him his tremendous power."

  "I know that part's true," Alistair said. "During the Blight, Signy and I went to the Frostbacks, looking for Andraste's Ashes. We found them, but the people guarding them were a weird dragon cult. They raised dragons and drank their blood, and it really did make them hard to kill. Apparently, it's inherited."

  Fergus said nothing, absently rubbing the groove in his skull. He remembered that the Chasind shaman had told him that he should never have survived such a wound.

  The dwarf snorted a laugh. "The witch wasn't the only one interested in the blood. Sometime later—we don't know when—a Tevinter magister got Maric away from the witch before she could finish her little project. So we traveled north to Minrathous to find out more about this Aurelian Titus. We met up with a relation of mine by marriage, Maevaris Tilani. She's a mage and a magister, for that matter, but she a decent sort. Together we sailed to Seheron, to the fortress of Aurelian Titus. He had Maric, all right: he was using his blood to power some sort of magical device called a Magrallen."

  "You met Maric? You spoke to him?"

  "Uhhhh….no." The dwarf shook his head. "He was unconscious, strapped to the wheel of that infernal machine. Hadn't been conscious in years, probably. I tried to get him loose. I… took a shot at the Magrallen with Bianca here." He slapped the stock of his crossbow. "Instead of releasing him, whatever I did sent all of us into the Fade."

  "And that's where I met him!" Alistair burst out, waving his hands. "In the Fade, I was his acknowledged son. I was a Prince of Ferelden. We were out hunting together. Cailan was Crown Prince, but I was a Prince too." He smiled radiantly. "It was great."

  "How nice for you," remarked Isabela. "My dream wasn't particularly pleasant. I thought I was a Grendle convert. I nearly killed Varric when he tried to straighten me out."

  "Anyway…" Varric went out, gesturing to his friends to be quiet. "Anyway, the Magrallen had sucked Aurelian Titus into the Fade, too, and Maric cut off his head. Once that was over, we could escape, but Maric didn't want to come with us. He said everyone he loved was there in the Fade with him: Alistair's mother… Loghain… Alistair persuaded him to try to come back to Ferelden. Needless to say, it didn't happen. Once we were out of the Fade, we could get a better look at what years of being drained by the Magrallen had done to him. He was more a corpse than a man, and Maevaris didn't know of anything that could be done for him. Alistair's sword gave him peace, and then… he crumbled to dust. He probably hadn't really been alive for a long, long time."

  Fergus hardly knew what to say. "I… see. It really was King Maric?"

  "Absolutely," said Alistair.

  Fergus stared at him. How would he know? An emaciated prisoner, near death? Alistair had only seen him years ago, once or twice from a distance. Had the dwarf or the Rivainni woman ever actually met Maric?

  What a bizarre tale. All right, the magister apparently had a reason to want Maric in his power, and whatever he had done must have worked to have kept him there. Fergus decided to suppose, for the moment, that the prisoner of the Tevinter magister really had been King Maric, kidnapped and used for an arcane blood ritual.

  It still did not prove that Alistair was Maric's son. Maric had never regained consciousness, by their own words, and had spoken to them only the Fade. The Rivainni's dream was apparently something t
hat she knew to be untrue. Why should a dream of Maric as Alistair's father be taken at face value? It had apparently comforted Alistair, but the Maric in his dream sounded like a construct of the most desperate desire of his heart. For Maric to wish to remain with Loghain was plausible, but that was something that everyone knew. The two men were best friends, and even in a dream state, Alistair's mind would surely recognize that as a given.

  But to long to remain with Alistair's mother? The serving-girl? That really did sound like a child's wish-fulfillment of a happy home with two loving parents, and bore no relation to the kind of situation that would have led to Alistair's birth, even if he were Maric's son. And for Maric not to mention Queen Rowan or his mother, Queen Moira… It was the dream of someone who had not known Maric at all, and not even very much about him. Fergus felt a pang of pity for Alistair. His own parents might be dead and gone, but they had been real, and they had loved him.

  "I hope I did the right thing," Alistair whispered into his wine goblet.

  "I'm sure you did," Fergus comforted him, shuddering at the horror of the prisoner's fate.

  "And I'll be a good and proper king, just as he told me to be." Alistair set down his cup. "I'm ready to work. I've let you down often enough."

  "It's not me you need to worry about, Alistair, but the kingdom."

  "You're right. I'll do my best. I promise. And we'd both better take care of that blood of ours: the blood of Calenhad. It's worth good coin in Tevinter!"

  "Nobody's taking my blood," Fergus declared. "Or my children's." It had to be faced, so Fergus said what needed to be said. "And what about you, Alistair? Habren wondered if you hadn't made yourself a foreign marriage during your travels."

  "Don't look at me," said Isabela. "Been there, done that, hired the Crow."

  "I'm never going to marry," Alistair said, suddenly serious. "Look, I'd better tell you. Come over here." He spoke over his shoulder to his friends. "Secret kingy stuff. Sorry."

  Fergus let Alistair pull him over to a window near the corner. He knew Alistair well enough by now to know that expression. Alistair was struggling with himself.

  "This is a huge Grey Warden secret, so you have to promise never to tell."

  What were they, children? Should he 'cross his heart and hope to die'? Fergus only said, "I swear on my honor never to divulge this secret."

  "All right. When we become Grey Wardens, we go through a ritual. It does things to us. Like make us hungry all the time. Like give us nightmares. It also..." he blushed. "It also makes it hard to have children, especially after the first year or so. I can't offer some girl children, and so it wouldn't be fair, you see..."

  "There are other reasons to marry, Alistair," Fergus said, deeply shocked. Had Eamon known of this? "For companionship... for love..."

  The young man smiled an old, old smile. "I think we both know that the chances of me finding love and companionship with any girl the Landsmeet would accept are next to nothing. And if she didn't have children, they'd treat her the way they did Freya, demanding that I divorce her for being barren! I can take care of myself, don't worry... but it won't be official. And there won't be any... more... children."

  Fergus caught the qualifier, and was alarmed. "Are you saying that you have a child?" This was serious.

  "Yes," Alistair nodded, looking uneasy. "I think I do. That daughter of Flemeth... Morrigan... the one who was with us during the Blight. I think I probably got her pregnant. She left and swore she was never coming back to Ferelden. She didn't want anything to do with me afterwards. She just wanted a child."

  "A child of the King?"

  "No." Now Alistair looked positively shifty. "A child of a Grey Warden. It was something... magical. Look here, Fergus. If that child ever turns up, you have to make sure that he doesn't try anything stupid."

  "Like claiming to be the true heir to the throne?"

  Guilelessly, Alistair nodded. "You can't let any blood of Flemeth's take over Ferelden. It would be bad: very, very, very bad."

  "I swear to you that I'll never allow it. Besides, you've formally made me your heir, and Caradoc after me."

  "That's right. But don't trust Morrigan. She's... sneaky. Let's go finish up that breakfast."

  They joined the others, and Fergus sipped his cider, thinking through these disturbing revelations. Out there, somewhere in Thedas, was Alistair's child, who was also the child of an apostate mage who possibly was the daughter of the infamous Flemeth. Fergus filed that in the back of his mind as something to beware of. Most likely, though, any such child would be a mage, and thus not eligible for the throne.

  Hmmm... just like Grey Wardens aren't eligible?

  Very well. It was something to remember. Something to warn Leonas and Freya about, and Caradoc, too, when he was older. For now, though, Alistair was back, free of foreign entanglements, and King Maric was still dead.

  "I was hoping," he said quietly, "that you would do us the honor of dining at Highever House tonight. Your companions would be most welcome." That came out sounding impressively sincere. Habren might be quite amused by the dwarf, but...

  "I've got to get back to my ship," said Isabela, shaking her head, "but thanks all the same. You're all right."

  "So you are," agreed Varric. "I would be absolutely enchanted to observe the noble Fereldan in his native habitat."

  Alistair grinned. "You'll have to tell me all about the Landsmeet. Anybody dead?"

  "Not this time. Oswyn bloodied Perrin's nose, but they saw sense before they took it any farther. Not much more than the usual hair-pulling and foot-stamping."

  "And the flouncing off when someone doesn't get his way."

  "That too. There are, of course, some real issues of substance that we need to discuss."

  "I was afraid you'd say that," Alistair got to his feet with a deep breath. "Varric. Isabela. I've got to go to work."

  "Good luck with that," Isabela scoffed, as Fergus and Alistair headed to the door. "Think it'll last, Varric?"

  The dwarf 's smile was tinged with melancholy. "It might. It's a way for him to pass the time. Everyone needs to find meaning in life: you sail, I tell stories, and Alistair has his crown."

  As Fergus followed Alistair out of the War Room, he heard the dwarf add in a low voice—as if speaking to himself—

  "We go through our lives, not knowing. Wondering. Trying ...Until we sleep."

  Chapter 16: Visitors from Out of Town

  "He's coming! Hermione! he's coming!"

  As he yelled the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos: It smashed shelves from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Harry jumped over the bed and seized the dark shape he knew to be Hermione—

  She shrieked with pain as he pulled her back across the bed: the snake reared again, but Harry knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate, his head was going to split open with the pain from his scar—

  The snake lunged as he took a running leap, dragging Hermione with him; as it struck, Hermione screamed, "Confringo!" and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling; Harry felt the heat of it sear the back of his hand. Glass cut his cheek as, pulling Hermione with him, he leapt from bed to broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, her scream reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair—

  * * *

  The Broken Circle

  —They were in a tower…they must be, but it was not Gryffindor Tower, nor the Astronomy Tower. It was a tower full of the dead and mutilated. They were in a school, but it was not Hogwarts.

  "Reckon we apparated here by accident," was Harry's conclusion. "Wherever 'here' is."

  They passed a dormitory, now a shambles. Instinctively, they clutched their wands. Horrible things had happened here. Bodies in robes, bodies in armor littered the hall. Some were burned, some were bloody. Many were very
young, with their last agony stamped on their distorted faces.

  Harry pointed at char marks on the walls. "Magic," he murmured. "Somebody was throwing spells around."

  "Horrible," whispered Hermione, a hand pressed to her mouth, stepping carefully over the shattered form of a girl her own age.

  Cautiously, they turned a corner and then stopped. A mass of twisted, unnatural flesh was… melting… into the stone floor. It was not human. It was not anything they recognized.

  "A magical creature?" Hermione wondered, peering in for a look. She caught the rank smell, and wrinkled her nose in disgust

  "Don't get too close," Harry advised, pulling at her arm. "That's… not right."

  There were more of the hideous remains: more marks of spell damage here and there, as if a great magical battle had recently been fought in this place.

  The hall widened and became a library. Hermione's face brightened, feAstridg safer and more comfortable, however irrationally, in a room full of books.

  Her fingers traced the spines of the intriguing volumes, shelf by shelf, as they passed. Here and there were more of the shapeless heaps of flesh. She looked at the spines again, her heart sinking.

  "Harry…"

  "Nobody's here," Harry whispered. "Nobody alive, anyway. Let's try going upstairs."

  For there was a staircase before them, and they moved up it, hoping to find something… not awful.

  "Are we in a dream?" Hermione wondered. "Is this anything like your visions, Harry?"

  "Not much," he said, with a shake of his head. "I mean, there was the time I kept seeing that door, but this is different. It's more like the time Voldemort's diary showed me a past Hogwarts. But this couldn't be Hogwarts—not even a Hogwarts of years ago."

  "No, it's not Hogwarts," Hermione agreed. She paused to pick up a charred book, left lying in the wreck of the next room. "Harry… I can't read this writing."

  He looked, and shivered. "What is that?" he asked. "Sanskrit, you reckon?"

  "No, Harry. It's not Sanskrit. It's not any kind of writing I've ever seen. I meant to tell you in the library. I don't recognized any of the writing! None of it! We're in a whole library, not one word of which I can read! It's a nightmare!"