Dragon Age: Inquisition fic -- The Road to the Temple of Sacred Ashes

[artaxastra]

How does a Lavellan rogue come to be at the Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Elleth has walked many paths before she comes there.

gen, no spoilers



Elleth is drinking in a tavern in Westfall, a Marcher town without an alienage, when the messenger finds her. Hers isn’t the only elvhen face in the bar, or even the only one with valleslim, but the boy who stands in the doorway looks fresh out of the forest. Moreover, he looks vaguely familiar. He’s young, still in that stage where young men have their full height but haven’t bulked out yet, his hair in a long red tail down his back. The first lines of Mythal’s valleslim are inked dark across his cheekbones and he wears them proudly though his shirt is mended and his boots are handed down and still a size too large. The wear on them doesn’t fit the way he walks.

Well, she’d nearly decided the woman she was going to meet had stood her up anyway. Sometimes buyers do that, if they’ve found a better deal. Elleth moves, and the boy sees her, his eyes attracted by the movement. Then they light with recognition. He makes his way around the guards drinking heavily fresh off a caravan, though one beckons him. “Hey lad, what’s your price?”

His eyes widen as though he can’t quite decide what to say, and Elleth stands up. “He’s with me,” she says, standing out from the table so the long knife at her belt shows, light colored sheath against her travel stained leathers. “Come on over here, Mahanon.”

A large woman leans back on her stool laughing. “You bought a pretty one!”

“Nah,” the guard says. “Looks to be her son.”

“Wrong on both counts.” Elleth beckons the boy to a seat along the wall and she takes the outside. “Aneth ara,” she says in the elvhen tongue. “You’ve grown since I last saw you. I hardly recognized the young man you have become.”

Mahanon has regained his composure, and he’s very poised indeed. The staff at his back tells its own tale. “I am the First now,” he says a little stiffly. “And it has been a long time. You do not come often to our aravels.”

“Congratulations. You are young for such an honor, and I am sure you are quite skilled.” Her voice is sincere, as is the sentiment. She doesn’t answer the question about coming often. The answer is either obvious or insulting.

“I hope you will come now. The Keeper has sent me to find you.”

Elleth takes a long drink of her mulled wine. The boy is blunt. No hedging, no run around. “Why?”

“She says it is a matter of grave importance.” Mahanon looks like he’s about to explode with how important it is. This is probably his first journey alone, and he’s had to hunt her up and down the Marches from Ostwick to Westfall, from serai to portage to tavern.

“Obviously,” Elleth says dryly. “Or she wouldn’t have sent her First to check the bars.”

Mahanon looks around. It’s mostly humans with ten or twelve dwarves, a hard-drinking crowd when the sun hasn’t set yet, and the sawdust on the floor still has last night’s stewbones in it. The whole place smells of piss and sweat and ale that’s cheaper than what she’s drinking. “Why are you here?”

“I’m meeting a woman who wants to buy furs for Orzammar, something of some interest to the clans, since what’s easily gotten for us is a lot rarer half a mile underground. It’s the first leg of a three way deal. I trade what Lavellan and Miese and Erdan catch to her for something considerably more valuable.” She waves at the bar boy, who nods and brings another hot flask and a pottery cup for Mahanon. “Then I trade that commodity to a gentleman with cash in hand, then turn the cash into highever weave and Antivan cotton so that young men like you have some new shirts.” She plucks at his sleeve. “Not as though you’ve got a standing loom in an aravel, do you?”

He catches on fast. “And would that commodity be indigo?”

“Let’s just say it’s valuable.” Elleth takes another drink. “Now it’s your turn. What’s so important that the Keeper sent you to find me? I’d see the Miese in a month for the autumn fairing and turn over the goods then. Why not wait for me with the Miese?”

“It can’t wait until after the fairing,” Mahanon says. “She says the autumn gales will come.”

Elleth’s eyebrows rise. “She wants me to go to Ferelden? Who’s to pay for this passage across the Waking Sea? And why?”

“As to the first, I’ve no idea.”

“Of course not. Money grows on trees.” Elleth shakes her head. “Sea captains expect cash, not furs. Passage to where? Denerim?”

“Jader?”

“That’s more than halfway down the coast, nearly to Orlais. The only reason to go there is Orzammar, and I don’t see why not use a go-between with Orzammar. If we need something in particular, I can get it without running to Jader in an autumn gale.” Elleth swirls the dregs around in her cup and then refills it.

Mahanon has the uncomfortable look of someone who’s talking above their pay grade. “I don’t think it’s about Orzammar. I think it’s about the Conclave.”

“What’s that to do with us?”

“I don’t know.” Mahanon takes a sip of his wine tentatively, then a larger one. “The shem are having a holy meeting. The Keeper is concerned. She told me to ask you to come talk with her on all you hold dear together, on the promises you made as children sailing boats of huckleburrs.”

Elleth sighs. She and Ista were nine when they sat by the stream, kicking their feet in the water and sending wishes down to the distant sea. All of those wishes were wild, and none of them came true except Ista becoming Keeper. And yet Ista would never ask on that unless it were critical. The years had pulled them apart, Ista into her service and her spirit world, and Elleth into the world of grey markets and free traders, but something of that childhood sisterhood remains.

“She says it’s important to all the People, Elder.”

“I am no elder.” She takes another sip. “But I will come. In the morning. I will wait for my contact tonight, and we will be off with first light tomorrow.”

He looks as though he means to argue, but then subsides, no doubt seeing the wisdom of not starting the journey back to wherever clan Lavellan is camped at sundown.

“We will stay here, and you may share my room,” Elleth says.

“If that…”

“Believe me, you will find me easier company than those who will also offer.” She smiles. “I shall treat you as a kinswoman. A pretty young elf is fair game if they travel alone.”

Mahanon looks confused for a moment. “But you are an elf.”

“I am neither pretty nor young,” Elleth points out. “Also, I am known to shoot people. So let us not test whether you can avoid entanglements on this journey, shall we? Tomorrow is soon enough to see what the Keeper wants.”

Lavellan has camped in a valley with a narrow mouth, a natural cave leading off to the side with many branching tunnels, some of which no doubt come out higher up the mountain. It’s a safe place, and one they’ve camped before. Probably they intend to ride out the winter here, having summered in the valleys and harvested abandoned orchards. There were farmlands there once, rich holdings before the Blight ten years ago. The survivors consolidated closer to the coast, leaving farms to wind and weather.

But the apple trees bear. Gardens self-seed. Life continues even in the face of Blight. Lavellan has taken full advantage. Elleth can see the great baskets of apples stacked beneath a tent, ready to be stored for winter food.

Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel is sorting apples, and Elleth stops at the edge of the camp, waiting to be properly recognized. Of course they’ve actually been seen by watchers long before. She and Mahanon have made no attempt to conceal their approach, and everyone knows Mahanon.

Now he lifts a hand in greeting. “I have returned,” he says. “as the Keeper wished. I have brought Elleth Lavellan with me.”

“Be welcome,” the Hearthmaster says, stepping forward. “Mahanon. Elleth.”

“Hearthmaster Valsenan,” Elleth says, inclining her head.

Mahanon steps forward for an embrace. “Father.” He’s as tall as the Hearthmaster, though not as broadshouldered yet.

“How was the journey?” Valsenan says, squeezing his son a little too tightly as though perhaps he had worried about a young man nearly grown.

“No trouble at all,” Mahanon replies.

Elleth steps past them and holds out her hands to the Keeper, who takes them on outstretched palms. “Keeper.”

The Keeper has seen forty-nine summers, and her dark hair is streaked with grey at her temples, coiled up into an elaborate braid held with bone pins. She’s an imposing woman, taller than most elvhen, and her eyes are a silvery blue-gray that can send a shiver down your spine. Now they’re warm. “Elleth, it’s good to see you.”

“And to see you, Ista.” That’s true, and it’s also true that there are few left among the Lavellan who will call her Ista, the nickname of her youth.

“My First is greeting his family. Perhaps my Second can make tea,” Ista says, sending a blond girl about eleven scampering for hot water and the tea things. “We will wait in my tent.”

“As you wish,” Elleth says. She’s aware of the stares following her. Hunters come into camp with bows all the time, but hers is red oak and steel, not ironwood, and her leathers are cut to a human pattern, close to the body with no ornamentation, like a second skin with a short jacket over it that won’t catch on things in the forest. She wears no concealing cloaks or hoods, her face plain to see. The weather is fair, so what need of those things?

The Keeper’s tent is orange. It’s stretched in front of a cave entrance, the side pieces lifted up for day, bedding neatly stowed. There are three embroidered pillows for sitting. Elleth sinks down comfortably, laying her bow and quiver aside while the Second carefully lifts charcoal with tongs into a brazier and sets it before them. The hammered iron pot full of water is put on to heat, and the girl makes a great show of presenting four different metal boxes of tea for the Keeper’s choice. Elleth is amused that one of them still bears the label “Mobry and Sons, Kirkwall.”

The Keeper selects a dark winter tea. “I remember you like this one.”

“I do,” Elleth says, and makes polite conversation while the girl prepares everything. Everyone is watching while pretending not to watch. Surely they all know the Keeper sent her First to fetch her and if they don’t know why they’re certainly wondering.

The Second kneels, pouring the tea into two round cups, each ornamented with a diving kingfisher.

“Very good, Arriani,” Ista says. “Thank you. You may go.”

She nods formally, once each to each woman, and scampers away.

Elleth takes a sip of the tea, rich and warm, tasting of smoke and bitter orange. “So, Ista, what was so important it couldn’t wait a month until the fairing? And in any event, the Waking Sea isn’t that bad until near Midwinter. That’s two months on. I had business before then.”

“This can’t wait until Midwinter,” Ista says. “I have dreamed.”

Despite herself a chill runs down Elleth’s spine. “And?” She takes another sip.

“I have dreamed of a hole in the sky and death falling like rain.” Her voice is calm, almost sleepy. “Of soldiers dying in the desert and aravels burning on the plains.”

Elleth takes a deep breath. Her voice will be even and calm as well. “Another Blight?”

“No.” Ista shakes her head, her eyes focusing on Elleth. “It has to do with this Conclave. It has to do with what their Chantry decides and does. I see great danger and great opportunity.”

“You fear another Exalted March?”

Ista sighs. “Perhaps. When things go badly wrong, they do blame us. And now they are in turmoil and I hear that their Divine has called a Conclave. Perhaps she means to unite them against a common enemy. Another Exalted March could bring them together against a perceived threat.”

“We are no threat to them.” Elleth snorts. “You have not seen their cities and their armies. To attack us would be like a druffalo attacking a fly. They could swat us out of existence with less trouble.”

“Which is not much comfort to the fly,” Ista observes.

“True enough.” It’s a disturbing thought. Even if just the Orlesians got behind an Exalted March it would mean death for their people who lived in the western part of the kingdom. That’s far from here, but the clans are all kin. If not, how would they not have died of interbreeding long ago, if all one could chose from were those around them?

“I would like you to attend this Conclave,” Ista says.

“I doubt they plan to invite me.”

Ista’s mouth twitches. “You have always had a talent for sticking your nose in where it wasn’t invited. Of course they will ask none of us, but you can slip in. I’m sure there will be elvhen about, servants, traders, people who settled near the Temple of Sacred Ashes after the Blight.”

“And who notices a servant?” Elleth shakes her head. “But I suppose you are right that there will be traders. A crowd that large at a remote mountain temple requires a great deal of logistical support. Guards, carters, sutlers, whores….”

“For a sacred Conclave?”

“Believe me, the shem will do plenty of drinking and whoring, even at a sacred Conclave.” She glances at Ista’s raised eyebrows. “There will be many who are not grand clerics or oath-sworn Templars, and I’ve known Templars who could raise a glass with the best of them.”

Ista shakes her head a little sadly. “I do not know how you do it. How do you live among such corruption? Their cities stink of sewage and they think of nothing but sex, drink and lyrium. When this is over, will you not come home? You might find a bondmate among the People, and you are a fine hunter.”

“I have no need for a bondmate,” Elleth says. That old question again, and one she has answered already to what one would think must be satisfaction. It’s irritating. “Besides, perhaps I like sex, drink and lyrium!”

Ista laughs. “You’ve never touched lyrium, surely.”

“Or perhaps I should bring home some hairy shem with big, stomping boots and giant mugs of beer?” Elleth asks. “Full of dirty jokes and flatulence?”

Ista all but doubles over, the same smile on her face as when they were naughty children together. “Oh that is ridiculous! You would never lie with a shem!”

“You’d be surprised.” Elleth doesn’t laugh. “Some of them have much to recommend them.”

Ista’s smile fades. “You wouldn’t.”

“I have found those among all peoples worthy of my regard,” Elleth says. “And I count humans, dwarves and even Qunari my friends.”

“But that’s not….”

“I will lie with whom I choose, and none can gainsay me.” Elleth puts her cup down. “That’s as important as none can force me. We pity our kin in the alienages who must lie with those they hate for a coin or two. I also pity those who cannot lie with those they want for fear of censure.”

Ista’s brows knit. “You are Mythal’s, I know, but we must be on our guard against what they will do. This Conclave may presage another massacre. You know what happened in Halamshiral last year, when the Queen of Orlais’ troops burned half the city because our city kin rebelled. It will take very little to turn them against us when they already seek a scapegoat.”

Elleth nods. “I know. And that is why I will do what you ask. I will find a way into this Conclave so that if they plan these things we can be warned. I defend the shem in general, foster-sister, not the Orlesian crown or the Divine Justinia. Neither can be trusted.”

“How will you do this?”

“I don’t know yet. But the huge number of retainers and merchants and so on means there will be an opportunity. I’m good at being inconspicuous.” She smiles to soften previous words. She had not meant to speak so strongly. And yet she hated to defend herself to Ista.

“I know you are. None better.” Ista is trying to make amends too. She pours more tea. “And I know you would never lie with someone unworthy or who lacked virtue.”

“I will find out what they are doing,” Elleth assures her. She won’t respond to the last. It’s really none of Ista’s business if virtue is not always what she seeks on long nights far from home, and if this shadowy world where all strangers mingle is more to her taste than the very small town that is a clan on the move. “Hopefully it will be only some matters of doctrine, or an attempt to make peace between factions in Orlais. Probably it will have nothing to do with us.”

Ista’s eyes are unfocused for a moment. “I doubt it has nothing to do with you,” she says quietly. “But I can see no more. We set wheels in motion but cannot know where they will stop.”

“If there is danger, I will find out,” Elleth promises, and takes a sip of tea that tastes of smoke and fruit.

The pilgrim way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes winds through the foothills of the Frostback Mountains, through the highlands of Ferelden. In the deep valleys the trees are bright with autumn, though snow already lies on the high peaks. The temple has just been restored, so Elleth isn’t surprised that the Divine has chosen it as the site of the Conclave. It shows off the Chantry’s power and nobody has any prior history with it. It’s technically in Ferelden, but it’s so far up in the mountains that it might as well simply belong to the Chantry. Neutral ground.

The Ferelden villages nearby are what one might expect, and not so different from the other parts of Ferelden Elleth has visited before, except that the altitude is much higher and it’s cold already. She finds that invigorating. The road to the temple winds up from the valley, curving back on itself like a great snake, golden trees changing to the dark greens of firs as they ascend.

Sometimes there is no barrier at all, and she can practically dance along the edge of the cliff, picking her way on rocks that the humans and their draft animals avoid. The wind is sharp. One misstep, one gust of wind, and it is a thousand feet to the rocks below. Only the sharp-footed mountain sheep dare it.

If she spread her arms she could fly, but of course that’s illusion. The wind would not hold her up. She is no dragon, even if poised on the brink she can imagine what it would be like to be one. If she jumped -- But she will not jump of course. It’s just a temptation, a test, to dance on the edge of death and laugh.

There are signs of fighting too, at least lower down, the conflict between mages and Templars that the Divine hopes this Conclave will end. A burned-out wagon is overturned in a gully, and Elleth shakes her head. Such waste is just stupid. But that’s the way the world is - decades of work can be brought to nothing in a moment, decades of nurture ended in flame. If the Divine can stop this, good for her, though Elleth doubts it. People who want to fight will fight and everyone else doesn’t matter at all.

It’s easy to blend in with the caravans. There must be a hundred people officially attending the meeting, and all of them have entourages of servants, ostlers, cooks, and the rest. There are nineteen high clerics attending as well as the Divine, plus the Grand Enchanter, the head of the Templar Order, and so many deputies and Knight Commanders and circle mages that you can’t swing your arm without hitting a notable. Not that she swings her arm. Elleth blends in nicely, walking behind a wagon full of provisions going through the gates as though she were one of the guards. After that it’s easy to get in the kitchen doors. All this crowd has to eat. One more hunter scouring the mountains for fresh mutton isn’t worth noting.

But she takes note. Here are the cellars and here the ovens, here the storage rooms for winter vegetables and here the seasoning cabinet locked up tight so that prentices won’t sneak the Antivan cinnamon and cloves. Here are the doors to the temple proper, and here the stairs to the chambers above where the Divine and the most favored guests will stay.

Of course not everyone is staying in the Temple. Even the notables’ servants have spread out in a tent city around it, and nearby towns like Haven and Whitestream are full to the brim with people who couldn’t get into the main Conclave. Haven seems to be full of the Divine’s people and Whitestream the Templars. Elleth hasn’t yet determined where the mages are. Messengers are running back and forth constantly.

There must be some way to get up into a gallery so that she can see the actual conclave tomorrow. She tries the upper corridor, but there are two guards in the Divine’s red and white at the far end in front of the doors. It’s a good bet that leads to the galleries over the hall. She’ll need to work around, maybe from the residential quarters. If the Divine is down in the Temple, the guest rooms may not be guarded closely. Likely early tomorrow is best. Once the Conclave goes into session, there may not be anybody upstairs except a few servants, and she can surely blend in with them.

Elleth backtracks, noting two Grey Wardens in full plate with griffin helms coming up the stairs. They speak with the guards and are then admitted. So Wardens too? Is everyone in Thedas here? She wonders what their possible reason is, other than that they too want to know what will happen and have the stature to get an invitation. Tomorrow everyone of note will be assembled in the Temple. She frowns. Everyone of note in one place. It seems like an opportunity for trouble. Well, then it’s best to have the Wardens, isn’t it?

She camps that night above the snow line looking down on the Temple from the peaks above. She dares no fire but makes a nest of fir branches pulled down and packed with snow. The stars above are very bright and the air is perfectly clear. The wind is blowing the cooking smoke in the other direction. Down there in the tent city there is cheer, mulled wine and roasted meat and all the other amenities people crave. Here there is only starlight and snow. She hunts alone, and who knows what the quarry will be? Knowledge is tricky prey.

Elleth rolls up in her blanket. Before dawn she will slip down the hill and into the still-warm kitchens. They’ll be busy and perhaps she can scarf fresh bread and cheese. Or better yet, claim that she has some business delivering breakfast upstairs. Yes, that. She’ll claim a tray for someone and that will get her past the guards. They’ll let in an elf carrying a breakfast tray. Then once she’s in the residence, she’ll ditch the tray in some bedchamber and investigate. There’s got to be a way to get into the galleries. It’s just a matter of listening at doors.

She closes her eyes. Tomorrow will be a busy day.

As always, I would love to hear what you think!