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.