The gatekeeper

The Fade.

Lirya looked around, recognizing the place at the very moment she opened the eyes. Actually, she didn’t even need to look at it. The fact that she had recovered her memories was enough to tell her she was dreaming.

They said only mages could visit the Fade in dreams and be aware that they were dreaming. There was even a name for them, “Somniari”. But she knew that was not true. At least not for her, though of course magic was involved. Since lyrium had been infused in her body, she could travel the Fade like the realm of the living too.

It was no blessing, though. Even if recovering her memories meant she remembered her beloved son, all the terrible memories of her past were there too, and she knew she was happier without them, awaken. Sometimes she wondered if her amnesia was caused by the Lyrium, or her mind was wiser enough to block the torture, the pain and the humiliation when she was awaken.

Even remembering Kyle was painful; because that made her aware of his sorrow and the way he missed his mother. That was the reason she left, and even if she took that decision awakened, her asleep self approved. Even not remembering having loved that boy the way a mother does, her heart ached when she saw him looking at her like a lost puppy, longing for a sparkle of recognition in her eyes… a recognition which never would come back.

So now she just watched him and his wife from afar in her dreams, happy to see her little baby having turned into such an awesome, brave and generous man. She knew he could feel her in his dreams too, and that had to be enough.

She walked slowly. Distances in Fade had no meaning, so she really walked out of habit, to do something, to trick her mind into being in a real place. The magic realm allowed her to feel the minds of many people, but the person she was looking for kept hidden from her touch. She was aware she wasn’t dead, but somehow she couldn’t grasp her sparkle, and she suspected it was because the woman was under some kind of magical protection.

So when she saw the figure standing almost in front of her, she wasn’t surprised. Nor scared. Though she stepped back a bit. One never knew when a demon was going to try to trick you, in the Fade.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The figure smiled at her. It was a warm, honest smile. Lirya tilted her head. Those were the most dangerous of all.

“You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you”, he said. “Since the time you got stuck in the Fade… in that torture room”. He was, or had been, a male human, in his early 20s it seemed. Average height, blond, curly hair, and bright blue eyes, with premature wrinkles around them which showed it was a natural cheery person. The eyes, though, were sad. Lirya sighed. The spirit of a dead person. The Fade had a good amount of these… People who were lost, who didn’t know they were dead, or, in the worst of cases, which had departed leaving something unfinished, and needed to do it before they could take their next step.

“Why you watched me?” she asked. “You don’t need me. You must go ahead. Leave the Fade behind. Lucky you, you can do it”

The young man smiled. “I don’t need your guide. But you may need mine”

Lirya frowned. “What do you know about me?”. She didn’t want to lower her ward. It could still be a demon. Then she raised a brow. Blonde hair. Arrogant smile. When she left, her son used to hang around with a blonde guy… He was only thirteen that time… but if he had grown up to become a man, he could very well have grown up to look like the one standing in front of her. "I think… I have met you before?"

He only nodded. She shook her head, confused. Finally the name came to her mind. Seth. Seth Hammond. "You… are a spirit?".

"As you are in the fade", he said. Then he added. “But unlike you, I don’t belong to the living ones anymore, if that’s what you mean”

So he was dead. Poor Kyle had lost his closest friend too. Lirya’s heart ached a bit more. "And why have you stayed here?"

"My duty. It seems being dead doesn’t mean I can move on like others do to the Golden City"

"You have a pending task?" she asked.

The young man lips curved in a sad smile. “No. But you have”.

Lirya blinked. “I do. But why should you get involved?”

"Oh, they asked me to do it!"

"They? Who?"

"A higher authority… I can't say more". Seth smiled again, and Lirya knew she wouldn’t get another word from him.

I wish we could have made a stop at home on our way back to the fade portal in the marshes, but everybody seems to be in a hurry and the most I can get is a night in an inn close to the Dalish campsite, since there’s no time to get a detour to Highever.

It will have to do, I think while I rest my head on Kyle’s shoulder. At least we have a real bed, and we could have a quick bath, and Ryan and Tahl are sleeping in different rooms. And Kyle is playful as always, and the thought that for a moment we almost lose each other always adds a feeling of urge to our passion which spices it up. So I can’t complain.

“So we can now close that damn gate?” I say, dreamy eyes, while Kyle strokes my hair.

“I hope so”, he says. “We have Berrygold’s orb piece, and the Medal of The Champion of Highever, which contains another piece. It’s not much, but it will have to do”

I nod, then I turn and kiss softly his nose. “So the orb is not complete? I thought it had been shattered into two pieces”

He shakes his head. “No. It was six pieces. We have found two, and Ryan thinks he can find another pair… The others… nobody knows”

“But we’re going to close the gate only with two” I say softly. “Will that be enough?”

“It will have to” he says, nuzzling my earlobe. It is clear he doesn’t want to continue speaking about it, and he has managed to make my mind go away again, so I welcome his attentions willingly.

So this is the marsh again. Feels creepier than the first time. I look around, and shiver. My hand looks for Kyle’s, but he’s not there. I’m alone, and I know it is the right thing.

I walk ahead. I know the portal, the gate to the fade I opened, is right there in front of me, and suddenly the idea of closing it sounds stupid. Why close it? I need to cross it. To go to the other side. A part of me knows it is there where I belong.

And then I hear a roar. I freeze for a moment, move my ears trying to find where it comes from. Not behind, as I hoped. It doesn’t give me a reason to run towards the gate, but that’s what I want to do… so I run, trying to reach it before the beast who has roared reaches me…

But it is too late. A huge white wolf jumps in front of me, just when I’m almost there… almost there… I stop and stare, but the wolf shows its fangs, and prepares to jump and rip my throat.

I wake up suddenly, sweating and shivering. A nightmare. And now that I’m awaken, I realize I’m more scared at the idea that I wanted to cross the gate than at the wolf in front of me.

It is still night. I turn to see if Kyle is by my side, and I sigh of relief when I see he is. No training tonight, or maybe he already came back. He takes care to get me tired enough so I don’t notice when he gets up in the middle of the night, even if I still don’t like this habit. Oh well, I bet there are thousands of things he doesn’t like of me, and he copes with them. That’s how relationships work, don’t they?

I take a deep breath and I’m about to turn back again to continue sleeping, when I hear him sobbing faintly. I raise my head and look at his face closely. There’s a single tear down his cheek, and his lips whisper “Mom…”. I sigh again, saddened. Who knows where Lyria is now, but at least she visits him in his dreams. I lean over him and wipe the tear with a kiss, then I feel his eyelid flutter and he opens his eyes to stare at me.

“I’m sorry” I whisper. “I didn’t want to wake you up”

He raises his head and pecks my lips softly. “Don’t worry. I…was dreaming”

I nod. “Lirya, isn’t it?”

He nods too.

“It probably wasn’t a dream”, I say trying to comfort him. “It is her way to tell you she still cares for you”. Since she disappeared, I add to myself. Though she could tell us where she is, so we could help her. Even if she wasn’t his mom for blood, I know where Kyle took his stubbornness from.

“She… she was saying something about the gate. She knows”, Kyle says. I frown. A memory crosses my mind like a shadow. Better not telling him my dream.

 “What did she tell to you?” I ask. He tries to remember.

“I can’t recall much. Something about not being enough…What do you think she meant?”

I shrug. I have no idea, I must confess.

He turns and hugs me tight. No words, no explanations. Just comfort.

“We will find her again” I say, returning the hug. “You’ll see. We found her once, we will do it again”

He sobs. “I saw Seth too”, he says suddenly, and for a moment I don’t know what to do. So I just continue hugging him, unable to take his sorrow away.

 Art by Savvid

The following day we don’t delay our departure to the gloomy marsh where the haunted wooden house in which Evelyn and I were kept prisoners had stood. There’s no trace of the home now, but a green glow shines in the middle of the water and we can feel the urge of strange creatures at the other side trying to get out, to invade of world. If I, that I have no magic powers, can feel that so intensely, I really can understand why Ryan feels so compelled to lock that gate. I shiver, and look for Kyle’s hand, like in my dream. This time he’s there, grabs it, and squeezes it softly. But this time I don’t hold his hand out of fear, or apprehension, as he probably thinks. No. I’m scared of my dream… and I fear, yes, but what I fear is to be attracted again to that gate. Because I don’t want to.

Ryan swallows, looks at the green spot with concern in his bright blue eyes, and I know he’s scared of the responsibility he holds. He takes a package from his pocket, unwraps it and we can see a golden medal which shines with a bluish glow. He sighs and looks at Tahl. The elf nods and gives him the crystal she has been keeping since we were in Berrygold’s tomb. I must admit I was too coward to keep it, but Tahl seemed more confident. Maybe she had no wishes to ask, so she didn’t fear that tricky thing to get into her body the way it invaded our poor ancestor’s flesh. As long as I’m concerned, I don’t want to tempt my fate.

Ryan takes the pieces and puts them together in a bowl. I watch him concentrating, until his face becomes red, but somehow nothing happens. Kyle and I exchange a glance, and Tahl snorts. Ryan rubs his forehead.

“I don’t know what has happened… it is the first time…”

Before he finishes I giggle. “Stop it, Ryan. It sounds as if you were talking about something totally different”

Ryan turns at me with a smile, but before he can reply, the water around the greenish glow starts to boil and turn red. We stare at it, already knowing something is wrong, but even before we can prepare our weapons, the heads of those horrible rage demons I fear so much start to show up. Kyle tries to push me away while unsheathing his sword, but I’m already with my daggers in my hands and while Ryan prepares a spell and Tahl shoots her first arrow, I stand by my husband’s side prepared to give my life before they take his.

We fight hard and bravely, but the demons keep appearing and I know we are soon going to be overcome. I pull Kyle’s arm trying to withdraw to a safer place, but he’s not willing to leave, even if Ryan and Tahl are stepping back too.

A quick glance around me shows the problem is the gate. As long as it is opened, demons will continue appearing through it, and they will defeat us out of exhaustion. I look at Ryan, almost begging.

“Can’t you try that spell again? We will protect you”

“There are not enough pieces”, he replies, concerned. “I was too optimistic… I though two pieces of the orb would hold the gate”.

“And now we’re going to die” Tahl mutters. “How appropriate”

But while we walk backwards, we realize the demons attention is now focused elsewhere.

Two figures come out from the gate, A man and a woman, half transparent… Spirits in the Fade. And I recognize her.

It’s Lirya.

Kyle’s jaw drop back looking at the man, though, and I wonder who he is. He reminds me a bit of Caleb, one of the newest guys at the Mabari. But he’s blonder. And younger.

And dead.

“Seth” Kyle mumbles. “Why?”

“You can see him?” I ask. I thought his amulet would avoid it, but the bond between both friends is too strong, it seems. Ryan and Tahl also stare. They both knew Seth when he was alive, and I somehow feel excluded again.

The spiritual couple is herding the demons as if they were sheep, but it seems it is not over. Lirya stays at the gate, frowning and making gestures, but the gate still trembles and moves. Seth approaches to us, with a ladykiller smirk. It is creepy, considering he has been dead for thirteen… fourteen years now.

“Kyle… Ryan…”, he says, looking at them… “And I take this is the blonde beauty I met in Antiva? You grew up well, little Tahl”, he starts. I swallow. And then he turns to me and I see the landscape behind his eyes and I don’t run away because I’m frozen in the place. “And you’re the one” he says with a smile. “The one who brought him back to life, when his only goal was revenge”. He raises a hand, and sees me tremble. “You’re scared… you shouldn’t. I’m not your enemy. I just came here to help”

“You’re dead” I just manage to mumble. He chuckles.

“Good observation. Which makes me a better target for those demons than you”, he adds cheerful.

Lirya grunts. “Stop the chatter. We need to close this gate. My magic is not strong enough”

Ryan steps ahead. “I can try to…”, but Lirya shakes her head. “Not enough, not enough… You need something more…”

“More!” Kyle blinks. “But what?”

“The other pieces of the orb?” I try to guess, but Lirya denies. “No time. The key. There should be a key…”

And suddenly I understand. “The ring!!!”. Kyle and Ryan look at me, and I rush to explain. “There was a ring… Nada kept it safe, but I found it and tried to destroy it… When I did, the place collapsed and the gate got open… Was that the key?” I ask to Lirya.

Lirya nods. She seems to have finished with the gate, but she stays close. I wonder if she’s dead or alive. What we’re seeing there is not her. It’s her spirit. And that creeps me out. Kyle walks towards her.

“Mom…” he starts. Lirya smiles sad.

“Go my child. Find that ring. With the pieces of the orb and the ring, I’m sure Ryan and I can do something.

“Where are you?” he insists. “Are you alive?”

She nods. “I’m dreaming, my child. That’s the only way I can help you. And thank you for helping me get out of the embrace of lyrium”.

I take Kyle’s hand and pull him away before we both end up crying. “We have a ring to find, love”. I don’t want to sound worried.

But I am.

I have no idea where to start the search.

Last time I saw the ring, it was falling amongst some bushes, near the now collapsed house where Evelyn and me had been kept prisoners of the crazy mage. Taking it out the home definitely destroyed it, but I guess the ring kept its powers somehow. Maybe someone able to feel magic could find it better than me?

I guide the group to what I think are the right place.

“I think it was… here” I point at some bushes. “But… it also could have been there… or there…” Damn it. There are bushes everywhere. “Can you feel it somehow, Ryan?” I ask.

“Isn’t your looting sense tingling?” Tahl teases me, but I ignore her, and continue looking at Ryan waiting for a reply. Ryan sighs

“I feel like Nero. Maybe I should fall on four legs and start sniffing?”

Kyle elbows him, but we really feel helpless. Finally I move and start looking between the bushes. I was the only one here who saw the ring, and the only one who knows how small, how insignificant it was… how difficult it will be to find it in the mood.

After searching in three sets of bushes, and tempted to give up, I suddenly feel something around my wrist. When I look down I see a ghostly hand grabbing my arm and I try to withdraw, releasing a short scream. Kyle rushes to help.

“What happens?”

When he approaches, the hand releases me and disappears, and I fall sitting on the ground.

And then I see it.

A sparkle. Something metallic.

Ignoring the fear to feel that creepy hand grabbing mine, I reach for it and… yeah! The tiny, smashed silver ring. I show it triumphal to my friends.

“Got it!!! What now?”

Ryan rushes to take it and for a moment I’m tempted not to give him, and I really don’t know where that feeling came from… After all he’s got the orb pieces, why should he ask more?. Then I shake my head.

“That damn portal is putting strange ideas in my mind” I say. “Take it, please, before I do something weird”, and give the ring to him. Ryan examines it, confused.

“This was probably a seal of some kind… But I’m not sure how can we use it”, he ponders. And if he says anything else, I don’t hear it. My eyes get focused on the portal, and a voice in my head tells me there’s something I really want inside. A part of my soul, maybe. A wish coming true.

I give a step ahead, then another. By the corner of the eye I feel some movement, fuss, Ryan and Kyle trying to stop me, maybe the voice of Tahl… I’m not sure. The portal calls me, and I’m replying to the call.

And then the white wolf steps in the middle.

It makes me hesitate enough to allow Kyle to hug me, and then I realize it is not a wolf. It is Lirya.

Like in my dream.

I shake my head, and I see both Seth and Lirya blocking the door, while Kyle hugs me and kisses my forehead. “Mari, Mari! What happens? Come to yourself, my love!”

I hug him back. “I… I don’t know… The portal called me… Like in my dreams…”

Lirya walks towards Ryan and takes the ring.

“This portal is too powerful. It was created when the spell to tie both of you went wrong, and it is still somehow related to you, Mari. We need to control it, if we can’t close it”. She looks at Seth, and he nods. Then, she slides the ring in one of her spiritual fingers. The ring is too small for real fingers, but the ghostly shape of hers fits the silver piece as if it was made for her.

And then she says the words that break Kyle’s world again.

“I have to stay to keep this gate closed”

I swear I can feel his hear breaking in pieces as if it were glass.

“Mother!” he says. “No!! You… you can’t stay like this forever!!”

Ryan nods. “Your mortal body will die if you don’t return”, he agrees. “Can’t Seth do it?”

Lirya denies. “Seth has to return to the Golden City. His time here is over. And… he’s got no magic powers. I can shape the dreams… and this gate is a dream itself. It’s my duty. To become the gatekeeper”.

Kyle’s eyes are full of tears, and he doesn’t mind it. He may be a grown up man, a big big shem, but it’s his mother, the one he lost when he was thirteen… and in front of her, he’ll always be a lost child. I grab his arm, and lean my face against it, trying to offer him some comfort, but I know it is useless.

“Mother… I can’t lose you again. Not again, please” he begs.

Lirya steps a bit towards her son, and strokes his face.

“Kyle. You’re not losing me… I will always be in your dreams”

He shakes his head. I know he wants to shout “NO!”, but he has no voice anymore. Lirya then smiles tenderly and kisses his forehead.

“My son. There’s another reason I belong here. Here, I can remember you”

And with those words, I can see her shape fading slowly, at the same time the door loses its power.

Kyle falls on his knees, and I know I can’t do anything, except waiting until his pain eases.

But we all know this is the best for her. Her body was already a hollow husk. She was not herself there. At the gate, she’ll live forever.

She’ll remember forever.

We’re back in Denerim. Kyle has been trying to find Lirya’s body, of course, but he doesn’t even know where to start. Personally, I think she doesn’t want to be found. If she was, we would try to wake her up, and that would cause her to abandon the gate. Or keep her body alive. So she’s hiding.

If this Denerim looks strange, we don’t notice. I don’t even realize that when we went to bed, we were still in Highever. But when we see the white wolf, I look at Kyle and say a single word.

“Lirya”

He nods, and we both follow the wolf. It is running, but we have no problem to keep its pace. It leads us to the outskirts, and to a small hut. It stops, panting on the door, and when we approaches, it disappears, as if it had never been there.

When Kyle opens the door, we both know what we’re going to find there.

Lirya’s lying on a bed, her hands crossed over her chest, her expression peaceful. Her hair is white again, like the wolf’s mane, and I wonder if it is just an image she’s sending to us or she really stopped dyeing it in real life too. It doesn’t make her look old, though. Moreover the opposite. Like a small child. Still asleep. Still dreaming, because that’s what she is doing.

“The wolf has shown us the way” I mumble. I’m aware now this is another dream, but the meaning is clear. There’s no need to hide anymore.

Her body has stopped waiting for her spirit to come back.

Kyle walks towards her and kisses her forehead, silent tears running down his cheeks. But that’s not her anymore.

Her real self, the one which perdures, is behind him. She’s not gone. She’s here. And she will never leave him. I can see it. Can’t he feel her arms around him?. Like saying "Silly son of mine, what would you do without me?"

He didn’t even wait for the sun to show up. As soon as he woke up, he jumped out of bed and I had it hard to follow him. Even if the dream was more a “Come to give my remains a proper burial” than a goodbye, because she would still be in our dreams, he didn’t want to lose a moment to go and pay his respects to her. And I think nobody has made the road from Highever to Denerim in such a short time.

The hut looks exactly like in our dream, except that there are no wolves guiding us this time. I am left a bit behind, because even if I don’t like them, someone has to tie the horses, so I’m not by his side when he opens the door.

I rush, though, and when I enter the dark room, I see him kneeling by Lirya’s body.

Everything looks like in our dream. The bed, her shape with her hands crossed over her breasts, the white hair, the tiny ring in one of her fingers… I walk forward to touch Kyle’s shoulder, trying to comfort him, when I realize something.

Her chest.

It still moves, up and down, so softly we wouldn’t have noticed. Her body has not given up yet.

And Kyle notices too, and he grins, and gets up to kiss her face, her eyes, everything… until Lirya opens her eyes and just mumbles.

“How long have I been sleeping? I’m… so hungry…”

And Kyle’s laughter mixes with his sobbing, out of words, while he hugs her.

We know the ring will still drag her to keep that portal during the nights. But we’ll make sure she wakes up in the morning… and that she will continue. Alive. By our side.

A tale of three elves

And I look for you between fire and blood
Between the edge of hope and despair
Like a shooting star in a barren sky
I surrender my past, future and present to you

“This time I will kill Ryan”, I snort, kicking a stone on my way. Tahl says nothing, but even if she seems as serious as usual, I’d swear I saw her smirk. “Not only he manages again to make Kyle go into some stupid quest without me, that he didn’t warn me you were going to go with me to find him!”

She shrugs. “If he had told you, you wouldn’t have come”

I glare at her. “I would have gone to the end of the world, with anybody, to rescue Kyle”, I reply, harsh.

“Yeah. But we’re not going to rescue Kyle. Mainly because he doesn’t need to be rescued. Don’t worry, they will meet us later today if everything goes as expected.”

I stop talking for a while to stare at her. “What? But you said Ryan had sent you because they needed our help in a matter of life or death!!”. I would jump to her throat but I need her to tell me what’s happening. Besides, I bet all this was Ryan’s idea, and he fooled Kyle too. I prefer to blame him alone than to think them three were in cahoots.

“That’s just a detail” she says, looking at her nails as if they were more interesting than me. Kyle says she can’t feel but I’m sure she has quite a deal of pleasure by getting on my nerves so I take a deep breath trying not to give her what she wants. “But that gate to the Fade your crazy captor opened again has to be locked as soon as possible, and it would be stupid to take twice the time just because my dad and you have to go together by the hand everywhere like schoolchildren”.

She turns to look at me and catches me mimicking her speech with my hand as if she was a puppet, so I’m afraid that my “We’re not schoolchildren!” protest should sound pretty stupid if I said it aloud. Instead, I hide my hands at my back and spit “Have I to be sorry that I share with Kyle something you will never share anymore?”.

I know she calls Kyle “dad” just because it pisses me off. And damn it, she gets it. But I also know that, if she feels something for a single person in the whole world, it is for him. And I probably hit the right string, because for once, she stays silent. I sometimes believe that, if I had not stepped in the middle, sooner or later she would have ended being to him more than an adoptive daughter... and I think she knows it too.

I would like to ask her a bit more about our quest, but I don’t feel talkative either, so we walk like two grumpy hags for a while, deep into the forests around Highever. Only one thing I see clear, and it is that we’re not heading to the marsh were the gate to the Fade, according to Tahl’s last comment, is still open. Whatever is the thing she thinks will help us to close it, is not there.

“So you want to learn my secrets?”, Flemeth said calmly, after busting her sneaking around the wishing well. Berrygold already knew that fake calm. The witch was boiling inside, and the punishment would be according to it. Berrygold almost closed her eyes as if she had been hit. “Then dive deep inside them. Why not? Look inside my wishing well… and rot in it for eternity!”

And with those words, and only with a movement of her hand, the powerful witch sent the poor elf flying down to the well. Berrygold’s own magic could do nothing to prevent it, her power not a match to her mentor’s.

The water softened the fall, and though painful, it didn’t kill her. She got up, rubbing her back and limping, and looked around.

Now her only chance, after all, was to find that orb, and see if she could use its power to get out of that tomb in life.

After a long walk, I realize we’re getting closer to the place where that Dalish clan which helped us with Emma was camping some months ago. They’re already gone, but the Dalish have claimed this place ages ago, and the carved places of their gods are there to show it. I look at Tahl. She was a Dalish once, and I wonder how she feels about that… or how she felt when she could, at least.

Even if it is clear this is the area, we still walk past the camping clearing and get again deep in the forest, to a place dark and calm. I can see more religious signs and some stones sunk on the ground, making kind of a circular pattern. Somehow this place is colder, and I brace myself when I realize it.

“This is… a burial place, isn’t it?”

Tahl nods. I see her leaning over the stones and I guess she’s reading the signs on them, looking for something. I can’t help much; I can’t understand Dalish writing, so I just look around, uncomfortable.

“And what are we looking for?”

“A grave. What else?” she says, sarcastic. I frown.

“I could go that far without your help, thanks”, I reply, harsh. “I mean, whose grave?”

“An ancestor” she replies. “The one who helped Sarim Cousland to defeat Flemeth, after she killed her husband, back in the Tower Age. A powerful mage, a disciple of the witch, who betrayed Flemeth, and got cursed for that… her, and her whole clan”

“Your clan”, I add, and she nods. “Is it related to your curse too?”

“Sort of” she says, even if I know the mage who cursed her, and Kyle, have not much to do with Flemeth. Though maybe Flemeth’s curse was only about bad luck. But Tahl says not much more, and examines the stones twice, with a snort. It seems that, whatever she looks for, is not there. As much as I love seeing her disappointed, an idea comes to my mind.

“If she caused the fall of the clan, maybe she wasn’t buried with the rest of the Dalish” I point out. “Isn’t there a special place for the outcast ones?”

Tahl looks at me as if she had heard a donkey speaking, but she has to admit I may be right, and stops kneeling in front of the old stones. Then, without a “You’re right”, she leaves the circle of stones and walks away, looking for lost tracks. Even if she says nothing, I guess it is a small victory, and I smile.

“You think we will be able to find that tomb? I mean… the Tower Age? That’s… seven hundred years ago… maybe the tomb is lost”

“We have to find it. The orb’s piece is inside that tomb, and we need it to close the gate to the Fade”.

The orb piece. So we’re seeking for an object of power. Well, that is something.

“Maybe Ryan should have come instead of us. I don’t see why we are so important. A mage probably could have tracked it better than us” I say, feeling useless. I’m following Tahl, but somehow I know she’s not going the right way, and I feel like walking in an opposite direction.

Suddenly the ground disappears under my feet, and I slide down a narrow tunnel I had not seen, hidden behind some bushes. A stone block stops my sliding, and I find myself rubbing both my butt and my knees before standing up and look around a bit more.

I examine the stone block in the middle and my hands find some engravings in it. If they’re a name or a curse, I don’t know, but they look a lot like the ones in the burial stones above, so I think it is time to call my companion.

“Tahl? I think I found it!”

“I got the damned orb for you!” Berrygold yelled at Dany. “I helped you and Regina against Flemeth, even if that meant my clan would be cursed and outcasted… and now you tell me you're going to marry someone else?”

Dany sighed, and looked sad at Regine before replying. "It is an arranged marriage. I didn't choose it"

Regina got between her friend and the jealous elf. “My brother thought an alliance with Dragon’s Peak would be useful, now that he has been proclaimed as the new bann. He convinced Dany's family into it”

“But that will bring you away from me!!! Why? I… thought we would always be together!!! Why did you accept?” Berrygold walked towards Dany, her eyes full with tears. Dany didn’t reply, silent as usual. The elf finally turned back and ran away. Regina stopped Dany’s attempt to go after her.

“Let her go… sooner or later she’ll understand… There are relationships that just cannot be”

While I hear Tahl cleaning the way after me, I step back to look at the chamber, lit by the sunrays which enter by several holes on the stone ceiling. Since nobody seems to have been inside this place for ages, I suppose all of them have been as concealed as the one I slipped in. In the middle stands the pedestal that stopped my sliding, a big square stone block, probably hollow in the inside, because a closer inspection shows some creeks on the top which suggest there’s a stone cover. I walk around it, trying to figure out what the inscriptions mean, but my heart knows we have found it.

I’m sliding my fingers around the top of the sarcophagus when I hear Tahl behind me and even if I say to my self I don’t care, I feel good for having impressed her.

“The orb is inside the tomb?” I ask her. She nods. “Then we need a lever or something. I think the lid is loose, but it is too heavy to move it alone”.

She smiles with that smirk of her I hate and takes a crowbar out of her backpack. “I expected so”, and makes me a gesture to go away. Of course, I think. And I could have been prepared too if I had know we were going to be playing the tomb raider instead of thinking I was going to rescue Kyle. But I step away, just in case. I don’t want that heavy gravestone falling on my foot by... mistake.

And one never knows what can get out of a seven hundred years old burial hole, either.

With an unpleasant shriek, Tahl manages to slide the gravestone some inches away, enough to peek inside the tomb, but not so much as the stone falls to the ground and breaks. She covers her nose and mouth to avoid all the dust her movement has caused, and only when the dust has disappeared and it is clear there’s no danger, I move closer too.

I’m not sure what did I expect. Probably nothing, since seven hundred years are a lot of years. Or maybe some scattered bones. But the body inside the grave, skin dry over the clearly elven bones, is whole enough to be considered a mummy. I wrinkle my nose. I don’t like corpses, old or new, but at least this one doesn’t stink.

"This is not a dalish tomb", Tahl mutters. "Looks more like Nevarran work. Same as the mummy... I wonder why?"

Maybe it was a way to state she wasn't part of the clan anymore, I think. Or maybe it is a way to... pass the curse to her?. I shake my head. I don't like where my thoughts are going. I have no idea, but even if I had, I know the question is not addressed to me, so I look inside the grave again.

The body has her hands resting over her tummy, and I frown a bit. It is as if, under the grey leather, something was shinning. I look at Tahl, questioning her.

“The orb is inside her, yeah”, Tahl nods. “All the sources Ryan consulted agreed that the orb had a parasitic behaviour, and if it wasn’t used properly, it would become part of the body”.

The only idea makes me sick. And we have to handle that thing? Not even with a ten feet pole!

“What now?” I ask to Tahl. “You take it, trusting that it will recognize your clan’s blood or something?”

She looks at me with an amused expression.

“WE both do it. None of us are mages, but our bloods combined should be strong enough, at least to put it into a contention bag”

I’m about to chuckle, but I don’t do because this place freaks me out enough not to feel like laughing. “Why both? It’s your ancestor, not mine”.

Tahl doesn’t have my concerns and laughs, a cold, feel-less laugh.

“I never said she was MY ancestor”, she says, and I know she’s enjoying it. “Both our lineages come from the same clan. In a twisted way, she is OUR ancestor. Mine… and yours.”

The orb had been fractured. It was the only way, Regina had said, and she knew too. Her attempts to dominate the complete orb had been a failure. Yes, it had helped her out of the well but at what price?. It was a thing from the Fade, and nothing from the Fade was to be trusted, it was the first thing she had learnt at the clan, and Flemeth’s actions had only confirmed that to her.

But even so, she thought, looking at the fragment in her hands… Now this piece was six times smaller, six times less powerful. Maybe she could do it. Maybe this time it would bend to her desires.

She held it close to her heart, and made a wish. Just one wish.

To get her true love back…

Tahl tries to take away the bony hands delicately, but it is like trying to bend a dry stick, and she only manages it after a disgusting cracking noise. Then she points at the shinning tummy, which seems brighter each time. I raise my lip in a disgusting grimace. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Take your dagger and get that orb out”

Of course, that is what I’m expected to do, but I feel as if I was helping to retrieve an unborn baby. How accurate. I finally win over my sickness and do it.

“I’m sorry, grandma”, I mutter. Tahl snorts.

“She never had children, so she’s not technically our grandma, you know. She’s more like a great-auntie”

I glance at Tahl. Wow, she’s trying to be nice. “In that case... maybe Evelyn should have been here too” I mumble, but she’s gone again, and I know for sure she has had enough of magical things with our latest adventure. Tahl looks at me as if she knew something I don't know, which is probably true, but I have my mind focused on my sister, trying to forget the blonde elf in front of me who calls me “mama” and has ended up being a far-cousin, and when I see the bright thing appear between the wrinkled folds of grey skin, suddenly forgetting my fears, I sink my hand inside to retrieve it. After all, it is a shinny, valuable thing, which makes my looting sense tingle.

And at the same time my hand sinks into the mummy’s entrails, I see that thing opening her empty eyelids, and her hands grabbing my wrist. I retrieve my hand so fast I forget of the orb and the shine and everything, trying not to pee over myself at the idea of those corpse fingers dragging me down to hell. But the thing doesn’t want my hand, it wants the orb.

Suddenly I see a glowing shape getting from the corpse, and I realize the mummy didn’t move. It is the spirit that rises from it which gives the impression… and it is quite an unpleasant one. I’m still walking backwards, wielding my dagger with one hand while rubbing the wrist of the other to my clothes, still itchy at the spirit’s touch… and I see Tahl is walking backwards too. Good. The elven stick can feel fear, at least.

“My orb!!! My wish!!” the spirit is saying. “Are you bringing my love back?”

I realize I’m sitting on the ground and still crawling back, even if I don’t think I am THAT scared. Actually now that I can’t see the mummy, the spirit is more majestic than scary. I mean, she’s a young, beautiful elven woman, with the ritual Dalish tattoos on her face, making her big green eyes more expressive. If she’s an ancestor of my bloodline, I guess I only got the red shade of hair and the lack of breasts, because what I see in front of me is stunning… Or maybe, like with Lindy, it is the spirit quality which makes them much prettier?

She strokes her tummy as if she was holding a baby. “My wish. My wish will be granted, won’t it?”. Then she looks at us, almost without seeing us. “After all this time! I swore not to rest until my love was back!"

Tahl curses beneath her teeth. I guess she didn’t expect a spirit watching over the orb either, but if the orb was so powerful, it seemed a logical outcome, didn't it? I'm starting to understand the burial chamber, the stone grave and the mummy... they wanted to keep this spirit locked somehow. And we released it again. Damn it, we so need a mage!

“What now?” I whisper to her, trying not to draw the attention of the spirit towards us. She is sniffing the air, as if she didn’t notice us… at least not completely.

“I feel the blood of my kin” she’s saying. “You want my orb? No!! You won’t get it, at least until it grants me my desire!!”

She starts spinning around the room like a cold wind, but I think she’s trying more to scare us than to harm us. Specially because she seems unable to see us properly. Maybe because we share her blood? I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to know either. I continue looking at Tahl, who is walking carefully to reach my side. In this situation, even her company is better than nothing.

“What can we do? We can’t retrieve the orb this way… and if we go, maybe she’ll disappear with it!” I say concerned.

“I sent a message to Kyle and Ryan with Teri before entering here” she whispers. “They should be on their way here. Maybe they will be able to calm her”

“We should have come together” I glare at her. She nods, not a single feeling of guilt. She looks into her backpack and gets a piece of bread and cheese to offer to me.

“Yeah. Want a snack, while we wait?”

I take the food blinking. Somehow it seems the only sensible thing to do… have lunch, with a raging spirit spinning around us, while we wait for someone powerful enough to calm it. That’s my life, I sigh.

“You don’t plan to stay the night here, do you?” I ask Tahl. But before she can reply, we hear noises outside, and I get up as if I had fire in my undies. “Kyle!!! We’re here!!!”

I run to the tunnel, while Tahl continues watching the spirit, and I help Kyle and Ryan to get inside the tomb. Ryan shakes the dust on his pants before looking around.

“Wow! That’s a mausoleum! She may have been outcasted, but seems her power was respected enough to deserve something like this!”

“Or maybe they needed to make sure she wouldn’t get out” Tahl replies, confirming my suspects. “I bet this place is full of contention spells, so her spirit doesn’t haunt anyone else…”

As if she had felt we were talking about her, the spirit, which had calmed a bit while we ate our cheese, agitates again.

“Cousland? A Cousland here?”. The wind blows again and Ryan falls to the ground, taken by surprise. “Give me back my Dany, Cousland!!!”

The rage makes her visible again, and she’s standing almost over Ryan, fire out of her eyes. And for once Ryan seems a bit worried. He had not seen it coming.

“Dany? Dany is gone, Berrygold!” he tries to say, but suddenly the spirit turns again, sniffing the air.

“My wish!” she whispers again, and rushes towards Kyle, and spins around him, and I can hear her sniffing again like a dog of prey. “Dany! I can feel your blood!!”

Of course that makes my own blood boil. How does that harpy dare to claim my Kyle? First Lindy and now her?

“Get away from him you bitch!!” I shout, running to grab him away from her. Then she glides to face me, her face a mask of rage. But she won’t scare me, ah no!!

“YOU!!! YOU DARE TO TRY TO TAKE MY WISH FROM ME???”

I stand, trying not to close my eyes, to resist her energy which is draining my life from my veins. “He’s not your wish!!! He’s my husband!!” I argue. How the Fade does one fight a spirit? I try to hit her and make her go away from me but I only grab thin air.

“Berrygold! Leave her alone!! It is me you want!!”, shouts Kyle, challenging her, and I realize he has taken off that amulet which protected him from ghosts. I feel like slapping him because of that.

“No!” I protest. “She doesn’t want you!! She wants her dead lover!!!”. But I suddenly feel my body free from the spirits draining, and I realize the call has worked and she has turned to him.

“You will come with me, my love?” she says, and she sounds so sweet it is creepy. She moves a hand forward, trying to reach Kyle’s, and I’m about to shout when I see Kyle’s hand starts moving forward to meet hers too.

“If you leave her alone” he says. “Don’t hurt her, please”

“NO!!”, I shout, my soul tearing apart. “Please, Kyle! Don’t go with her!!”

He turns to look at me. “It is the only way. She’ll kill you if I don’t, and I don’t want to… to lose you….”

I feel an “again” in his words, probably reminding Lindy, and all the times he has thought he was going to lose me, and I know that, the same I won’t be able to survive without him, the idea of losing me will kill him too. But that’s not the way! It can’t be!!!

Ryan probably feels the same because he sends a kind of magical bolt against the spirit, and since it is magic, it seems to affect her, giving us at least some seconds to think. The spirit turns to Ryan and sends him away with a blow.

“Cousland! You won’t separate us again!!”

“You stupid, stubborn elf!!” Ryan smirks, wiping a bit of blood from his lips. “You’re the one who has been keeping yourselves separated during all these years!!”

She glares at Ryan, her attention away from Kyle again, and I bless him for that while I run to help my husband, who has collapsed in the ground after almost being drained too by the ghost.

“But I have my wish!!” she continues. “Dany is back!! I feel it in that body!!”

Ryan chuckles. “You silly. Your Dany is gone forever, but you won’t see it, blinded by your rage. Open your mind, or whatever you have, and you’ll see it is the truth!”

Berrygold seems to hesitate for a moment, and her stare comes from Ryan to us. I hug Kyle and glare back at her, making clear I will fight for my man. Ryan takes advantage again.

“If you take that man’s spirit with you, you’ll only create another broken heart behind you. Is that what you want? You want your offshoot to share your fate?”

What a gift of the gab Ryan has, I have to admit. Berrygold seems to calm a bit. That argument seems to move her. Then she looks around.

“Where’s my Dany?” and her call is so pitiful I almost forget she wanted my man and feel sorry for her. Almost.

“He’s been dead for seven hundred years…” I’m about to add “You bitch”, but it wouldn’t be the best thing to say right now, so I just say softly. “Maybe you should stop clinging to this world and reunite with him”

Ryan looks at me a bit concerned and shakes his head, but the spirit seems more convinced. “So my wish will be granted… if I let go?” she asks, as if she was realizing just now, and I have the feeling we all four are nodding at the same time.

And suddenly Berrygold’s spirit doesn’t seem powerful anymore, nor majestic, nor terrible. She’s just a small, scared Dalish elven girl who has been missing her loved one for seven ages.

"I just want to join my love" she says, becoming a bit smaller each time, fading and feeling less powerful. It is as if she was disolving in the air.

"Just let yourself go. He's waiting for you wherever the dead ones go" I try to cheer her up.

Berrygold seems to curl over herself, over the orb inside her chest. "My Dany, my beloved one... My wish... I'm coming", she mutters, and suddenly disappears in a sparkle of light. I blink, blinded for a moment… and I realize I have tears on my cheeks. I hug Kyle, and I feel his hand stroking my hair.

Tahl is more pragmatic, and I see with the corner of my eye how she has rushed to grab a crystal piece, whatever is left from that magical orb, before it falls to the ground, and puts it quickly inside the special bag she has brought to keep it.

I snuggle my head against Kyle’s neck, then I can feel the others moving around. I reluctantly move a bit away so we both can get up too, and see the mess this place has become. I sigh. I can’t hate her. We’re too alike, and it is a scary thought.

“Well, at least she reunited with her man”, I mumble. “I can relate to that”

"She actually did ages ago. This was only a raging part of her spirit which got stuck to the earth". Ryan says seriously. Then he chuckles a bit. “Except that Dany wasn’t a man”

I perk a brow. “What?”

He laughs. “Dany was a woman, Mari”

I blush suddenly, for no apparent reason, then I look at Kyle who looks as red as me. Images of how attracted I felt to Adrienne when I met her the first time cross my mind in the worst moment, but he helps me to forget them elbowing me.

“Well, it seems I can be gay too!” he jokes. And for a moment we all feel better, and start laughing. Even Tahl chuckles.

So good for a fair ending.

The fog

I’m not sure what makes me more angry, if the fact of him having listened to Ryan and gone to Denerim without me, or the fact that I didn’t follow him as my heart demanded me to do. But the wrong is done, and he left me alone…

… and then I received the note from Evelyn. I knew from the very first moment there was something wrong with it, mainly from the fact that it was that: a note. Evelyn and me haven’t written to each other since she left that farewell note to me when she left the Mabari, and, strange as it may seems, we both have been ok with that. Except for the natural desire of having her by my side the day I got married, the rest of the time we both understood we needed to live our lives, and I guess we somehow knew the other would be all right.

So no. Evelyn writing me a letter made no sense at all.

The note asking mysteriously to meet her at a lonely place close to Highever, made even less sense. Why doesn’t she come here to see me, if she’s so close? She knows where I am, and she knows I am more than happy to host here at my home. But it was definitely her handwriting. She had written it.

I knew there was something wrong with that note. And even so, I went to the date. Or maybe because of it.

Because it was clear Evelyn was in trouble.

“And now we both are”, I mumble, struggling against the fetters which hold me prisoner. Evelyn is wearing a couple similar to mine, and like me, she was caught by surprise by that strange fog our captor summoned. She looks up at me from the floor. She has not surrender yet either, I can see it in the gleam of her eyes, but she’s worn out, having been in this strange cottage much longer than me.

“What?” she whispers.

I shake my head. If I can just… Damn I almost have it. I ignore the pain at the base of my thumb, while I try to make my hand as narrow as possible to slide it under the fetter. I feel something pouring and I wonder if it is sweat, then I realize it is blood… I’m leaving my skin in the attempt, but I will get it…

“I will take you out of here. I promise”, is my only answer. Before the crazy mage comes back.

To distract myself from the pain I focus my mind in Kyle. What will he be doing now? How will he react when he arrives back home and realizes I’m not there? Damn it, I hoped to come back before he arrived but it is clear I won’t be able to. I didn’t even leave a note. Why was I so stupid? Why?

With a last effort, I feel the hand slide down. It hurts like hell, but now I can move it… Then I look around. What now? I need something to pick the other fetter’s lock… and then free Eve. I touch my hair. The mage took almost all our clothes off, not for sexual purposes, but just to make sure we didn’t hide a weapon, and I’m just wearing a dirty chemise which probably was intended to be white… But he didn’t take my hairband… and maybe I can use the pin which fixes it… I bite my tongue trying to reach it. Yes!! And now, to ignore the pain in my hand and pick that fetters’ lock…

A ‘click’ is the reward to my effort, and with my hands free, I rush to release my sister. For the look of her hands, she has tried the same too… but without luck. She looks at me grateful.

“Hurry up!”, she says faintly. “He can come back in any moment”

He. Our captor. For a moment I had feared Edanhor himself was behind this, and I had cursed myself for having believed for a second his promise to leave us alone… at least until my first son was born. But when he showed up, we could see it was not our father, though he was definitely touched by the same insanity.

Nada.

I thought he had died with Dorella, in that old cave, but it seemed he escaped somehow. And he had got Edanhor’s journal, which was in Dorella’s backpack, and somehow started to consider himself a disciple, or a minion, because he spent the time saying how happy his Master would be that he had succeeded to capture not one, but both his offspring.

But now he wasn’t there, and it was our chance to escape. I rush to the door, which is not locked, and Eve grabs my hand.

“Wait! The ring!”

“The ring?” I blink, confused, then I remember. Nada had something… a magic ring or so… “Do you think this is time for looting?” I finally snap back at her, a bit more harsh than I intended.

“No, no… It is important, somehow… He said it keeps this house hidden in the fade or something. He showed it to me the first day, bragging about how clever he had been. If we destroy it…”

“… there’s a chance that people out there finds us and help us…”, I finish her sentence, and she nods. I’m still not sure it is a good idea. The ring can have a magical protection and warn him or kill us or whatever, but Eve has a point. If the house is visible from outside, whoever is out there… maybe Kyle, I think selfishly, will be able to see it and help us back home. We are not in a very good shape to run away for long. And I don’t want to wander in the fade when get out of this damn house, either. So I follow Eve, who is rushing upstairs to the Mage’s room. She crouches under his rickety old bed, and takes a wooden box with a triumph expression in her weary face. I come closer to her and examine it. It is locked, but it is not a problem for my pin, which was back to its safe haven in my hairband.

When I open the box, I find surprised something which looks like a tiny silver filigree ring, but which wouldn’t have fitted a human finger at all.

“Is this it?” I say. Eve nods. So I step over it to crush it, and not happy with it, I run to the window and throw it away, watching with a relieved smile how it falls beneath some bushes. If he wants it back, he’ll have to go for it.

And I can’t do much more because as soon as the ring leaves the house, everything seems to collapse around us.

Kyle Mallory was on his way home after a bounty mission at Denerim. People kept greeting him as “Ser Mallory”, even if he had not a knight title, and that made him feel uncomfortable, but the Highever armor Ryan had provided him combined with his height and build did nothing to avoid that fact.

Despite his wife's advice to stop and rest at an inn, he continued walking as his mind was focusing on one thing: home. The warrior wandered across a marsh he didn't recognized. It was late and fog was starting to come down. After hours of walking, he realized he couldn't see anything and his compass wasn't working.

Then, from the deadly white walls of smokes, came a screaming figure of a bloody elven woman. "Please, don't do this! Please!"

Kyle was startled, because he almost could recognize the face of the elven woman. But before he could utter a name in reply, the woman disappeared, and the fog was upon him once more.

Our confused, lost and tired warrior touched his sheathed blade, prepared to take down anything that came next through the fog.

Minutes later, he heard growling. The warrior blinked, and then a dark shape was upon him, gnawing at his armoured neck, pinning him down. Reaching for his beloved sword, he sunk the blade into the beast's shoulder. The beast hissed and broke away from him, its blood shot eyes gave him a final warning before it ran into the fog, the sword still on its shoulder, and Ser Mallory's package in her mouth. Poor Kyle was left without a weapon, without a mean to continue through the marsh, with his package gone. What ever could he do except finding a shelter and wait till the morning?

I grab Eve’s arm and we both run down the stairs trying to get out of the collapsing house when I head the mage yelling in front of us.

“You fools!!! What have you done? The gate is open!!”

He stands between us and the door out of the house, and exhausted and wounded as we are, I’m not sure we can fight him. I look around for a way to escape while Eve distracts him.

“Good! That way we can return home!”

He runs towards us, and I prepare my body to fight, but he just moves us apart to run upstairs.

“Stupid! Stupid children!! Nothing can stop her now!!!”, and I hear horrible sounds behind us. I turn my head just a fraction of a second, enough to see a spider-like face, full of horrible eyes, before a log from the ceiling falls between the mage and the monster and us. I don’t need much more. Not spiders again! I run, hearing Evelyn panting by my side, and we leave the house at the same time it collapses completely, or at least that’s how I feel, but we don’t wait to see if the spider is dead inside it.

A marsh surrounds the place. We jump to the water, walking awkwardly and then swimming when the water becomes deeper, not looking back. Only the splashing sound of Eve by my side keeps me aware that she’s all right. And soon we reach a muddy shore and we run, or try to, our feet sinking in the mud and tangling in the roots of the swamp trees. We have to keep running: we hear clearly the sound of the creature running after us. I trip. Eve turns back to help me up and for the expression of horror in her eyes I see the creature is too close.

“Run! Run!! Don’t worry about me!!” I shout, and I see the struggle in her eyes when she finally turns back and runs, while I try to crawl away before I feel the sting, and then my limbs become heavy… and all is darkness….

There goes another day.

Kyle opened his eyes, still half asleep. The fog had a strange effect in his mind and he had not been able to sleep during the night, but he wasn’t completely awaken either. Suddenly, a figure came out of the mist, screaming.

“Please! Please, help me!!!”

He got up with a jump, completely aware now. The elven figure was completely familiar, and yet… Wait, was this a déjà vu? This was the image he had seen the day before.

But this time the elven girl, white soaked chemise completely stuck against her skin, wrists in blood and bare feet, ran towards him and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt.

“Oh, Kyle!!! Is it you? Maker’s breath, this is a miracle!”

He was at the same time surprised and relieved, and a bit aroused at the revealing shapes of his wife under the chemise, when he suddenly realized something. It was maybe the way she looked at him, or the way she had spoken his name… That elf was not Mari.

“Eve? Is that you?”

“Yes! Come with me! Mari! The monster!!”

Kyle had it hard to think about it twice. Mari was in danger. There was a monster. And he had not his sword. Awesome, said a small portion of his brain, while the rest motioned his whole body for combat.

And soon he saw it. Eve stood by his side, trembling but not stepping back. Brave little girl, it probably was in the Blank’s genes. He put his arm between her and the giant spider.

“Go for help, Eve. I’ll fight it in the meanwhile”

She hesitated for a moment, a “It’s my sister!” reply in her eyes, but then she nodded and ran away. She knew she could do nothing against that thing.

It was a spider indeed, but not like the one Mari and him had fought in that cave, the day he realized he could have lost her. This one had an…unreal thing about it. It looked like rotten flesh, and the head… he could swear there was an elven head on the top of the spider’s one. A head he had seen before, in the Deep Roads. But overall, it seemed something from the Fade. An abomination.

The monster was busy wrapping something with its spider-like jaws, and Kyle didn’t need to see the hint of red hair to know it was Mari’s body. He screamed in rage, his berserker fury burning across his veins.

“Release her!!”

And he rushed trying to move it apart from the cocoon with a head butt. The spider, taken by surprise, stumbled away a couple of steps, to turn back its jaws and jump over this new danger. Kyle couldn’t avoid a first blow.

Blood was streaming down his eyes as his vision was blurring, but Ser Mallory knew he couldn’t give up. His ears were also bleeding, and he couldn’t listen for the creepy crawly's claws shuffling on the muddy floor, but the rage was still burning in his blood.

"Bite off his head, tear him in half, pick his brain or eat him whole, leaving bits of bones behind is a no - no". He could almost hear the beast’s thoughts as the spider drove him to a corner. He took something from the ground and stabbed blindly at it.

“Darkness is your ally”, a soft female voice whispered, “not only because you can hide, but also because of me”.

Slender, smooth hands went around his body. Lovely, soft voices poured into his ears. He closed his eyes to drink them all in and feel strength returning into him.

“Mari?” he asked. But there was no reply.

He opened his eyes and was cornered, right below the beast’s huge shape. The elven head’s cold eyes looked into Kyle’s green ones, and its pale lips were curved into a deadly smirk. The poor Ser Mallory knew that, if he died here, it would make a lasting impact on whoever the monster was trying to impress.

Then, her sweet voice was pouring into his ears again. "Stop, stop the mage, please." And he wanted oh so much to turn around and kiss her, but he had the feeling he couldn’t.

His newly found strength and clarity of mind allowed him to realize three of the Spider's Eyes were bleeding. His heart pounding in his chest, he threw a handful of mud into the remaining eyes, and slide below the furry creature as it struggled with its new blindness. Within seconds, ignoring the creature’s enraged cries; he crawled on the creature's back and proceeded to break off its neck with his bare hand. The monster collapsed…. But the barely human head stood up.

A grotesque thing detached itself and crawled on four hands from the dead spider’s body. There was fire in its hands. The spider was burning. The thing groaned. “You… will… pay!”

On the opposite side of the clearing, Evelyn appeared with a person with golden armour. Then, in an action that no one expected, the creature’s hand heated, and proceeded to throw a fireball at Ser Mallory. But Templar magic calmly neutralized the pale mage, then the person with the golden armor pointed at him and bellowed a single word: "Maleficar!”. Behind him, a group of soldiers fell over the creature, now with nothing to defend himself.

Kyle stumbled and excused himself, anxiously searching for something with his eyes. He caught a glimpse of something glowing in the corner and immediately ran towards it. He ripped the cocoon, looked inside and despaired. Her hair was red and her arms were smooth, still beautiful, but he couldn’t kiss her. Seeming barely a child, she laid dead with red and blue on her skin. Ser Mallory held the little body into his arms and sobbed.

The warrior was taken back to reality by the sound of horses and a hand on his shoulder. Lord Cousland - his long time friend - was looking battered and worried when he finally looked up at him. Evelyn was also there, deep concern in her eyes, and also that templar they had met a couple of times… what was his name again? He didn’t care. She was dead. It was too late…

Ryan squeezed his shoulder. “Let me see her, Kyle… The mage wanted her alive… maybe…”

Kyle reluctantly released his grip around Mari’s body, at least enough for Ryan to examine her. The noble checked her pulse and put his shinny greave in front of her face. When a very faint breath fogged up the surface he looked back at his friend with a sigh of relief.

“Alive”

Ser Mallory’s reaction was just looking into her face again, taking a lock of hair away from it, and suddenly hug her, sobbing. Evelyn knelt on the floor like collapsing, with a sigh of relief. The Lord Cousland shook his head, got up and rushed to call a healer. “Someone has to keep a cold head”, he mumbled.

Do you know that feeling when you were sleeping so tight that when you wake up it is as if someone pulled you back into your body?. Well that’s what I’m feeling now, and it is not a pleasant feeling… because my head aches and my limbs are dumb and I feel I can’t control them… I was so much better where I was before coming back to my body!!

I open my eyes and I could swear that even my eyelids hurt.

I see Kyle’s… and Evelyn’s… and even Ser Ryan’s faces staring at me and for the look in their eyes I’d swear this time it has been close… even closer than that other time the spider bite me… and for the first time I really feel scared.

And suddenly the memories strike me like a bolt… not only the kidnapping, and the destroyed house… and the spider… I also remember standing by Kyle’s side while he was fighting, the way I always do, the way we’re meant to be. And I could swear he heard me, he could feel me… Was I dead?

He suddenly hugs me so tight I am out of my breath again, and when I try to beg him to release me, I just cough. Evelyn puts a gentle hand in his shoulder.

“Careful, big boy… let her recover. You’re going to crush her ribs”

And I’m back on the improvised bed, panting again, and under the healer’s care, I get asleep again… But this time it is a healthy, strength recovery sleep.

When I wake up, things seem more calmed. Ryan’s men are still moving around, researching on the ruins of what had been that wooden house where the mage had held us. A man in a templar armour, with his hand replaced by a sword, is checking a cage where a grotesque thing is kept. I narrow my eyes… I have seen that thing… when I was fighting… dreaming that I was fighting with Kyle. Evelyn is curled up close to me, sleeping too. I forgot she was also wounded when we escaped. And Kyle is still by my side, holding my hand. I squeeze it slightly to tell him I’m awaken.

He strokes my forehead lovingly, more calmed now. “How do you feel?”

“As if a herd of brontos had ran over my whole body” I reply quite accurately, in a low voice not to disturb Evelyn. “But happy to see you… What happened?”

Kyle rubs his nape, both because he’s probably more tired than I will ever be, and because he’s not sure about how to start, or how even to tell it. My speechless warrior. I rub his leg. “All right, don’t worry… you’ll tell me later”. Or more accurately, Ryan will. I will make sure of it.

As expected, Ryan has no problem to give me all the details about the story. Even the unwanted ones.

Evelyn had run into him when he was searching the marsh because of reports of strange events happening in the marsh. Ser Campbell, the Templar, had arrived to Highever and asked the Couslands for permission to investigate those events, which seemed to point to his personal quest for Edanhor. Ryan didn’t hesitate to offer also his help, and even a group of his personal men.

He had had it hard to believe the weird stories about the haunted place… until he found the corpse of one of the beasts with Kyle’s sword deeply sunk into its flesh and the package his friend had gone to fetch to Denerim in its jaws. So now he had a personal interest to stay in the marsh in search of his friend, and that’s how Evelyn found them.

While Ryan talks, Ser Campbell is watching the cage where the unfortunate abomination is kept, seeming disappointed. The thing is just repeating “You’ll see, master… I got them… both of them… alive… for you”, but no clues of where his master is, neither why he wanted to capture us. Not even our.. father’s diary.

“I will send this poor… thing… to Kirkwall”, he announces. “The First Enchanter is studying abominations and the effects they have in the people’s bodies. This will be both a good subject of study and a warning of what dealing with demons may bring to mages”

As if I cared. The further it is from me, the better. But Ser Campbell has other concerns.

“This area”, he adds, getting up and walking towards us, and especially towards Ryan. “We have to seal it”.

“You can feel it too, huh?” Ryan looks up at him.

The templar nods. “The veil is thin. It is as if they had left a gate opened…”. I remember what the crazy mage said with a shiver, and I wonder if I should tell him about the smashed ring. He sighs. “I can send some of my men to watch over, but if you can, at least, forbid people to get close…”

Ryan nods. “No problem. We will spread a story about Barbarians camping here. That will keep people away”

Kyle smiles, tired. “And why should those barbarians be so interested on this place, anyway?”

Ryan’s face lightens up. His storyteller side is already plotting.

“They were waiting for you, my friend, of course!” he says enthusiastically. “And for those goodies you bring from Denerim. And little did we know that their base was right on this marsh; in fact, if you had kept on walking, you would have fallen right into one of their traps, as they received news of your return to Highever last night and planned to intercept the package and capture Ser Mallory himself”. He stops to catch breath, then adds "They thought I will trade Highever for you, my friend."

"And would you?" Ser Mallory asks jokingly.

"I would, but then I remember that you'd kill me anyway." Says the young Lord Cousland, chuckling. "Now, we should return to castle Highever to examine the package”

“With your permission, my lord, I’d like to have a night off. To spend it with my wife” Kyle turns his head at me. I’m just leaning mine over his shoulder, relaxed, while he strokes my hair. “We both deserve it, after the experience”

Even if the place still feels haunted, the fog has started to clear out, and some sunrays make the place brighter, making all of us feel better.

“Just what was in that goshdarn package anyway?"

"Nothing. Definitely not the medal of the Champion of Highever", Ryan chuckles.

Everything is all right now. Time to go home.