In Peace Vigilance - Chapter 9

IX: Sins of the Mother

Jowan
“Are we there yet?”
“Just shut up.” Eloise growled. I sighed: for being our first experience in the Deep Roads -at least for three of us- we were holding it together well, but sometimes I felt the need to joke a bit, to loosen up... a need Eloise and Cullen did not share.
“That's weird.” Carver said, “I don't sense any darkspawn.”
“These are the roads, how can you possibly not sense any darkspawn?” Cullen asked with a frown.
“Creepy isn't it?” Anders joined in, “I sense something, but it's not a Darkspawn it's more like... a warden?”
Eloise looked at him alarmed: “You can sense Wardens? That's... a little too soon, isn't it?”
“Normally I don't.” Anders admitted, “All I know is I sense something, but I'm not sure of what it is... It's like darkspawn... abandoned this place. Look at the walls...” he pointed his glowing staff at the rocky surface of the cavern.
“What about them?” I watched closely and pointed out the only strange thing I could notice: “There's no moss or mould on them?”
“That would be normal under usual circumstances...” Anders smirked, “Because when darkspawn inhabit a cave, they spread the Blight, and the walls are usually covered with tainted filth and, black slime and aberrant mildew.”
I grimaced: “Lovely.”

Ewan
“What do you need me for?”
“Straight to the point... I like that.” she purred, “You're here to do your job, Warden. For centuries I tried to keep this section of the Roads safe, until the treacherous Bregan, an Orlesian Warden-Commander, betrayed the order during his Calling and revealed to the Architect the position of the Old Prisons... and with that information, the Architect managed to reach Urthemiel and unleash the Fifth Blight on this world... a Blight you ended. But two threats remain: Razikale, the dragon of Mystery, and Lusacan, the dragon of Night...”
I frowned: the Architect knew the location of the Old Prisons? But he wouldn't be as foolish as before, he wouldn't attempt the Joining with Razikale and Lusacan, seeing what had happened with Urthemiel... would he? I suddenly regretted having let him go.
“How do you know all this?” I demanded.
She giggled: “I am my mother's daughter.”
“That you are.” I crossed my arms, “And that's exactly why I don't trust you. Albeit helpful, Flemeth wouldn't do anything for the world that wouldn't get her some sort of... benefit.”
She smiled: “True. See, the benefit comes in the form of the Old God soul. I want to take advantage of your... peculiar situation. Tainted with a different kind of taint, immune to the song...”
“As was the Architect.” I noted, “and he failed, starting the last blight.”
“True. But you are also a Grey Warden. Should you corrupt the Old God, you would could kill it on the spot without letting the Old Song interfering.”
“There is two of them, though.”
“And there is two of us.” she smiled, “As I told you, thanks to my sister's little ritual, we are bonded. Wherever you are, I can channel the Old Soul into me and... sacrifice myself, freeing me from this blighted body, and leaving you with the possibility to kill the last Dragon.”
I nodded: it was true, Morrigan and I shared a bond of blood, and the fool I was, to not endanger her, I took her blood into me, and not the other way around, as she wanted.

It happened that night in Redcliffe, when she came to me offering the deal. I was hesitant at first, but I gave in, in the end: I had nothing to lose and everything to gain from the deal, and I agreed to sleep with her. When she drew the blade and pressed it to my arm, I stopped her.
“What are you trying to do?”
“It must be you to strike, but the Soul needs a link to follow to me. I need a drop of your blood in me to form it.”
“No, it's too dangerous.” I reminded her, “I bear the taint.”
“I have means to fight it...” she shrugged, “and besides, the child will bear it as well.”
“I won't risk it.” I took the knife from her, and before she could protest I had pressed the blade on her finger, drawing a drop of blood. She looked at me surprised when I brought her hand to my lips and started sucking her fingers, her breathing becoming erratic...
“Yes...” she huffed, her voice filled with lust, “That would work as well...”
Blood magic foreplay, who would have thought?

So that was how she found me, Still, it didn't ring completely true, but I decided to let it go for now. “And what if the Dragon is not corrupted?” I wondered, “It would still be an Old God...”
“Then the Old Soul would travel into the nearest Dragon.” she explained, “Just like the one of an Archdemon wopuld do to a darkspawn. Razikale and Lusacan will be reborn in a safe place, away from the deep roads, where darkspawn cannot reach them and corrupt them. The Old Powers will be preserved, albeit mutilated, as Mother taught us, and I will live with the comfort of having done this last task for her... and who knows? Maybe one day, with the knowledge of Urthemiel, Razikale and Lusacan, a way to revert our forms may be found.” she shifted her eyes to Tamlen, clearly appealing on his desperate wish of healing from his condition.
If that didn't backfire: “Liar!” Tamlen shouted, “Do not trust her, Warden, she speaks for the gods that conquered ours!”
Her expression morphed into disgusted contempt: “Do not put the blame on the Old Gods for the deeds of the Dread Wolf, shemd'arillen.”
Tamlen gasped outraged. Whatever she called him, it mustn't have been nice.
“You spun a good story, Chatha. But Flemeth, for some reason, wanted an Old God soul, and now you seem to want the same thing. Why?”

Eloise
We followed Anders and Carver through the tunnels, expecting to be attacked any second, but nothing happened. The scary Deep Roads looked so... uneventful, so far.
We turned to a cave and exited in a large area: a field of rubble and decomposed filth was lying in front of us: it looked like a Dragon's nest, though I had never seen one, and I couldn't tell for sure.
“What is that?” anders asked pointing at the walls of the cavern.
I frowned: small glowing red rock formations were dotting the walls of the cave, it looked like Lyrium but... “I had never seen red lyrium.”
“Kirkwall's full of that shit.” Carver frowned, “Every other vein we found in our travels was red...” he turned to Anders when a thought stroke him: “The lyrium... the one Bartrand stole... was red, wasn't it?”
Anders hesitated for a second then nodded: “Yes, it was. What about it?”
“Didn't that idol drove him insane? Didn't he say... it sung?”
Anders frowned for a second then his eyes widened. I realized the same thing Carver was implying and shook my head: “Lyrium it's a rock. It can't be corrupted by the Blight, the taint infects only living beings.”
Anders didn't seem convinced with that: “Justice remembers the song of Lyrium... it does sing, but this Lyrium sings a different song...”
That got my attention: “Who's justice?”
Carver snickered: “You don't know? Anders' is an abomination. He took a spirit of Justice into him.”
Cullen and I stared at him appalled. The only one who didn't seem to care – or perhaps he already knew – was Jowan.
“So what?” he said, “I'm a maleficar, Cullen's a deserter and you...” he glared at me as a loss of words, “Well, you're you. We shouldn't judge him, Ewan trusts him and that's enough for me.” he stomped away towards a hole on the opposite side of the cave we were in. I didn't know how to take that, Jowan looked... troubled.
I jogged after him, Cullen following us close but keeping his distance as he wanted to give us some privacy.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“Spectacular.” he spat with bitter sarcasm, “My best friend – no, my brother – is somewhere here in the Deep Roads, probably with a mind set on sacrificing himself and we're bickering about the life of Lyrium and the abomination status of the Pidgeon.”
“Pidgeon?” I frowned.
“Ah, right, you hadn't join us yet, when Cullen told us.” he chuckled myrthlessly. He stopped and spun around to face me, “I don't give a crap about all this, Eloise, all I care now is to find Ewan and bring him to safety. I have spent too much of my life worrying about... msyelf...”
I followed his gaze past me and turned to see what he was looking at: right outside the cave, lied an Eluvian. It was dull and clearly shut, and it looked like it didn't belong here but dragged by clumsy hands and left lying there more for convenience than design, yet, it was a way to seek out help.
Jowan jogged to it, caressing the surface and murmuring words we heard from Ewan. He charged his hands and Channeled through the mirror, but the artifact didn't activate.
“Dammit!” he cursed. “Ma lin Mythal enansal! Open, for the...”
“Enaste!” I corrected him, “I think he said something with enaste...”
“Right, favor, not blessing... Ma lin Mythal Enaste!”
Nothing.
I sighed. “It must be broken... or your blood is not as favored as Ewan's by Mythal.”
Jowan bumped his forehead on the shining surface and drew in a ragged breath. “I am scared Eloise.”
“So am I.” I admitted.
“I have just found him again. I don't want to lose my brother another time.”
I nodded in understanding, and lowered my gaze politely, so I won't see him cry. The light had my gaze shoot up again, though: the mirror had started glowing and Jowan jerked away from it.
“It opened!” he breathed delighted.
“Who did you want to...?” I started to ask, but then a small figure darted out of the mirror followed by a woman with black hair and yellow eyes, wearing a purple woolen tunic and a black leather skirt and boots.
“Morrigan?”

Ewan
“Have you ever seen your son, Warden?” Chatha asked ever-smiling, her eyes studying the lyrium stalagmite as if she could see the future in it. “Isn't he... wonderful.”
I narrowed my eyes: “You know, I always thought Flemeth wanted a kid with an Old God's soul because he or she would have been the perfect host... But there's more to it, isn't it?”
She laughed in delight, and I finally got how crazy she was.
“I don't care about the Taint.” she grinned at me, “There is power in my blood... in our blood, and you could come to use it at its full potential... in time. You have already unlocked it.”
A tentacle slithered towards me caressing my cheeck. I jumped away drawing my weapon and eliciting another fit of laughter from her.
Then it hit me: “You... you don't want just the Old God's soul... you want it in me... and then...”
Do you really think that I haven't figured out how her magic works? That I didn't make it mine?
I gulped, taking a step back from her: “How can you even survive that?”
“You have no idea what I can survive to, Warden.”
“And what if I don't follow your plan?” I demanded, “As you said, I'm the only warden you can use. The only one with a bond of blood with Flemeth, the only one that drank Avernus' potion... what if I refuse to go kill the Dragons?”
She laughed again. Tamlen was more confused than ever.
“I don't get it, what does she want.”
“She wants to become an Archdemon.” I explained, “She wants me to kill an Old God and keep its soul in me... then she wants to possess my body... and exploit its full potential.”
Her laughter intensified. Tamlen and I backed slowly away from her.
“I wondered what kind of person you'd be, Warden... I imagined that right: a self-centered brat, basking in his glory, ignoring who really let you get where you are right now...”
She hissed and her face split open, like the one of the Mother's did. Tentacles appeared out of nowhere, darting from behind the filthy rags and grabbed me and Tamlen, lifting us bodily from the dirt and pulling us to her face.
“You are an important pawn in my game, warden, but you're just a plan B... in plan A, you are nothing but bait.”
Bait? Does this mean...

Cullen
“Kieran!” Morrigan growled. “Come here now, young man!”
I didn't know what shocked me the most: seeing Morrigan here, having her son clinging to my armor or the way they acted as if it was perfectly normal to chase you own son through a magical mirror into the deep roads.
“He needs us!” Kieran yelled. I looked down at him, his eyes pelading, then I turned to Morrigan who was stalking towards me. I may be a trained templar and she might be an apostate, but I know better than putting myself between a mother and his cub voluntarily.
I rose my hands in surrender, as she was trying to catch her son, who was running around my skirt.
“Oh, for the love of... quit this tantrum, kid, and go back to the mirror!”
“Er...” Eloise ventured, “Hello, Morrigan, we didn't manage a proper introduction before, but I'm...”
“I don't care who you are.” Morrigan snapped at her, “I am here for my son.”
“And I am here for my father!” Kieran rebuffed somewhere around my hip. I grabbed him by his shirt, hoping that if we collaborate Morrigan might me easier to cooperate with.
“Where is Ewan.” she asked as she got hold of Kieran's wrist.
“He ditched us and entered the deep roads without us.” I explained, “We're trying to find him.”
She narrowed her eyes at me in a wordless reprimand, and then looked around, finally noticing where we were.
“Well...” she finally said, “It looks like you're in the right place. Good luck with that.”
“Wait!” Jowan interposed himself between them and the mirror, “Can't you help us? At all?”
“I could, but I would not endanger my son by exposing him to the deep roads.”
“He's Ewan's son too.” Jowan reminded her.
“Wait.” Carver and Anders had reached us following the commotion caused by the boy, “Is that Ewan's son? The one with the Old God's soul?”
Morrigan snapped her head at the Wardens, shifting her stance to defensive. “How do you know that?”
“Ewan's not exactly keeping it as a state secret you know...” Anders smirked, “at least with his friends.”
“But if he's the one, he must get away from here as soon as possible.” Carver's voice had a panicking note to it, “If he gets the Blight...”
I realized what he meant: “...He could turn Archdemon on us! He's right, I don't want a reprise of the Fifth Blight!”
“That's exactly...” Morrigan started, but the boy managed to wriggle out his his mother's grasp and ran along the cave. “KIERAN! COME HERE!”
“He's there!”

Ewan
...This way!
The echoes brought a chidish voice to the cave and Chatha laughed harder. “Oh, this is even better than I expected!” she flexed a tentacle and Tamled let out a gargling shout as black blood pured out of his mouth. I watched in horror as the unfortunate elf bled to death.
“A sacrifice.” she explained, her voice calm and her eyes crazier than ever, “For what's to come...”
“How am I bait?” I asked.
“There is two Gods, two souls...” she explained with a smile, “If you could lure Morrigan here, we could have been together... you, me and our son, a nice divine dragon family... but it sounds like the boy is here... that's even better than I imagined... I shouldn't even go looking for those dragons, darkspawn can have them...”
That's it. She may try to posses me how much she wants, but she will not have my son. I placed my hand upon her tentacle and cast a Fire Burst. She shrieked in pain as she jerked the offended appendix sending me flying through the room.
“You will pay for that, Warden!” she cried, “Daughters! To me!”
Morrilocks appeared from every crack and shaded niche in the cave, crawling, clawing their way to me. One of them approached Chatha and I saw them glow red for a moment. Chatha fell still, folding on herself, as the Morrilock turned to us laughing.
Did she just...?
Kieran barged into the cave only to find himself surrounded. He stopped so fast his feet slipped on the mossy ground and he fell on his butt, Morrilocks slithering to him. I let out a growl and started slashing my swords at them, trying to open a path to my son, that was now wrapped in a shimmering force field.
Seconds later, Morrigan, Jowan, Cullen and Eloise emerged from the darkness.
“Ewan!” Eloise called as she cast a bolt at a Morrilock near me.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted, “I left you on the surface for a reason!”
“Well, sue us!” Jowan laughed as he paralyzed another darkspawn so Cullen could slash at it.
“As for me, your son is a pain in the ass!” Morrigan growled as she drew a glyph with her staff that was crossed by three Morrilocks. As soon as they passed through the enchantment, they fell on the ground dead. “And you said these things looked like me?” she demanded outraged.
“You're definitely prettier.” I rapidly spun on myself cutting limbs and heads with my sword, “How did you get here though? You didn't know where the entrance was...”
“We did.” I turned to see Anders and Carver fighting their way through the creatures.
“And where did you come from?” I groaned, slashing again at the creatures attacking me.
“You never sent those samples to Ansburg and the Commander sent me buggering you.” Carver laughed as he swung his greatsword through the mob.
“And we got a message from Velanna at Vigil's, telling us about these new 'spawns...” Anders continued, “so we both thought to check on you.”
Just as my luck is. One moment I'm alone facing death, the next I'm surrounded by friends and allies saving my rear. I don't know if this makes me feel like a sort of Maker's protege or the butt of His divine jokes. As my friend dealt with Chatha's breed, I turned to face her.
The broodmother was... like petrified, her body devoid of color and cracking, dissolving into ash and dust, as if being deprived of the soul had suddenly fossilized it. One solitary Morrilock stalked towards me.
“At last, what I craved, yearned for all these years...” the Morrilock hissed, with Chatha's voice. I gulped down my surprise: she told me she could do it, but one thing is believing, one thing is actually seeing. “Warden, Sister, Old God... where do I start? Who should I choose? Are there any volunteers?”
I glanced behind me: the Force Field around Kieran had faltered, but he was now defended by Jowan and Eloise. Morrigan had fought her way through the horde and was right behind me.
“Chatha, I presume.” she deadpanned.
The creature smiled, skin cracking and one of the bandages covering the eyes falling, revealing a single glowing iris lunged in the darkness of a black orbit.
“So, sister... you escaped Mother's grasp only to fall into mine? Or are you here to offer your own son to me?”
“When Fade makes sense.” she charged raw magic in her palms, ready to strike at the sister but Chatha was faster, and extending her grasp past us, she pulled Kieran out of the battlefield and right into her arms, a move I've seen only Revenants do.
We both stilled: the creature shielding herself with our son had us frozen in both rage and terror.
“Let him go.” I hissed.
“What do you offer?” she retorted.
“A quick painless death.” Morrigan growled. “Let go of my son or I swear there will be not enough of you left to fill a phylactery.”
“Let her try.” Kieran said, a smirk on his face, “Let her reap what she sows, she's in for a nice surprise.”
“Am I?” Chatha twisted her fist into Kieran's shirt lifting him off the ground. If that didn't struck a nerve! She glared at him, fury in her eye: “What do you know about what I sow, little beast? What do you know about what I want?”
“Nothing, which is exactly what you know.” woah, the kid had nerve, “You wish and seek, and plot in the shadows and you don't even know what you're really after.”
Chatha roared furiously tossing Kieran away as he didn't weight more than a rag doll. I gasped outraged as Morrigan took the opening to pounce at the creature, shifting mid-air into a giant spider. I rushed to my son, checking on him but he was apparently unhurt. What worried me were open woulds where the Blight could have entered his body and infect him: I already killed an Archdemon, I didn't want to repeat the process with my son.
“I mean it, father, let her try.” he whispered frantically, “She'll be vulnerable, I can take her...”
“Are you crazy? I won't use you as bait...”
“She can try, but she can't have me.”
“What if she does?”
“She doesn't know what she asks for, but I do. If she tries to possess me, she'll be destroyed, but if she tries that with anyone but me, you'll die.”
I turned to see the status of the battle. All darkspawn were dead or dying, the Wardens and Cullen checking on them to find survivors, the mages ready to strike in support of the fight of the giant spider against the Morrilock-Chatha.
Morrigan was clearly winning, but something had her jump back and shift into her human form, staff ready in a defensive stance. Chatha melt into a puddle of black goo, and from it tentacles emerged, like a rage demon crawling out of the ground. In a few seconds the broodmother was back.
I gaped at the scene, and my eyes flew to the other broodmother's body that was lying at the end of the cave and was now little more than a pile of dust. Is this what the Ander soldiers witnessed when they slew Dumat in the Anderfels for the first time?
The revolting mass of flesh and tentacles shook and swung its appendixes around the cave, making us all back away from her. Her eyes fixated on Morrigan.
“See, sister? I can make their bodies mine, but as long as I enter the blighted, Blight is what I get.”
“How can you even do that?” Morrigan shivered, “That's an Archdemon's power.”
“This is the power of a strong soul that doesn't hold back!” she roared and turned to Kieran. “What say you, son? Want to be a dragon?”
“I'm not a dragon.” Kieran retorted. “You're toying with things you don't understand, leave it be before it's too late.”
She grinned and the world stilled. I could see the creature's eyes glowing red, and then the whole body started shaking like she was about to crack open. I recognized the magic, I had glimpsed at it minutes before, but now my attention was completely focused on it, registering every detail: the sizzling aura enfolding Chatha pouring out of every disgusting pore of her rotten body, the shade of what she once was and deep down truly is flashing in front of her turned face, a string of energy, cracking and sizzling through the cave right into Kieran's eyes and my son's smug grin of satisfaction, as Chatha had fallen into his trap, not the other way around.
I didn't think about his words before, I didn't think at all. Chatha was about to possess my son, take away his being. Stealing his power was the least of my concerns. I didn't care about the Old Soul, I cared only about Kieran.
I launched myself between the two of them just as a glowing sphere of bubbling spiritual energy soared through the cave. Morrigan's mouth open in a mute cry of desperation, Cullen and Carver launching themselves against the broodmother a second too late, Anders and Jowan frozen in shock, Eloise drawing a glyph that she will never complete in time with her staff... I took all in, as Chatha's spirit, or soul, or will, hit me straight in the chest.
My body burned from the inside, a strangely familiar sensation I had felt only once in my life when I plunged my sword into Urhemiel's head. I closed my eyes and accepted the invasion, the pain, the sacrifice due to save the son I had never known.
As I fell into darkness, I sent out a prayer to whatever power was listening.
Please, take care of Kieran.