Chapter 34: Crossroads - The Last Light

When next Raviathan opened his eyes, he was greeted by a dull ache in his head and side. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the small hearth fire that shed far too bright a light for his sensitive brain.

Where? A cottage, small and filled with all sorts of plant cuttings and odd objects made of feathers, leather, and bone. The scent of the Wilds. He lay in a cot, seemingly safe.

“Ah, you waken.”

A slender dark haired woman. “M-morrigan?”

“So you do remember me. That’s a start. What else do you remember?”

Raviathan shut his eyes tight, a hand held over his forehead as if that would keep his brains settled. “Darkspawn. The tower. What happened? Why am not at Ostagar?”

Morrigan knelt be the fire and stirred the cauldron bubbling with a hearty aroma. “Ostagar has been overrun by the darkspawn.”

He hadn’t heard correctly. That ... no. “Overrun? What about the armies? The king? Duncan and the Wardens?” Despite the ache in his ribs, Raviathan started to sit up, wincing at the pain.

“Be calm. T’would be a shame to undo mother’s healing, and there is nothing you can do from here.”

“But what about the signal fire?”

“Calm yourself. Mother and I watched from the trees. A fire from the tower erupted, and Loghain...” she looked at him with a hint of pity, “quit the field.”

“Duncan?” His voice sounded so small.

“None from the field survived as far as I saw. A scant few up beyond the fighting ran, but if they live or not, I cannot say. It was mother who rescued you.”

Raviathan lay back, his mind blank as he tried to wrestle with what Morrigan said. No. That ... no, it couldn’t be. Maker, no. What was he supposed to do now? “None of the Wardens survived?”

“One other.”

Thank the Maker for that. Raviathan clung to that hope that he wasn’t alone in this mess. “Can you start from the beginning?”

“How is he?” Alistair’s raw voice croaked when Flemeth left the hut. Though less sane than Morrigan, the crone was preferable to the mean little git who had disappeared back into the little hut. He’d take insane over mean most days. The cold of early morning made him shiver, but he didn’t mind that. Not now. The constant mist that hovered like a miasma kept the sun from touching the land. The ceaseless dreary dark of the swamp depressed him. As it should be, he thought. All dead. The worst pain of all was Duncan. For the first time he had something of a family, people who cared for him, and that was all gone now. All he had left, his one hope, had been lying near death for days now.

“He’ll be well enough. You’re awfully concerned for one you’ve known for such a short time.” Her smirk had the mean of a cat watching an interesting insect.

Alistair crouched down by the lake then held his aching head. The last thing he needed now was some cackling witch who’d just as soon turn him into a toad. Most of the time he wished they’d leave him alone to his pain. He didn’t want to be reminded of anything else, least of all witches. Granted, neither of them would be alive if it weren’t for Flemeth’s intervention, though he near had a heart attack when the great bird swooped down on him.

How had she known to be there? She was like Morrigan, waiting for the perfect time to pounce on her prey, however uncharitable that thought was considering he still lived. Still lived, and how unfair was that. “They’re all dead. He’s the only one left.”

“Humph. So he is your guiding light then,” she said preoccupied. “Fitting.” The witch always put him off. Her moods changed faster than the early spring weather. “He is a hard one to read ... as well he should be. I only get bits and pieces, but his path with you is clearer if you choose that road.”

“Path?” Alistair asked absently. Greagoir was gone. And Marcus. And Levine. They had teased him, sparred with him, laughed with him. They had ribbed him for a month, calling him the Chantry Virgin. After finding out how true that statement was, Marcus had made jovial quest to the Red Light District to get their newest brother laid. His words. Alistair had protested as they force-marched him through the streets, and he blushed so furiously when the hard-eyed, half-dressed women called to him that the questing Wardens gave up and decided to spend the night drinking at a tavern instead. He had nursed a pint of beer all night and giggled uncontrollably as they swapped stories and told jokes. All dead.

“Choose that one and he will betray you and yet not betray you, again and again,” she said, gazing at nothing. Or maybe it was the shadows of the Fade she watched. She was like a cat that stared at some odd spot in the air as if she could see something that was invisible to everyone else. “Only when you understand what he is will the cycle end. What will happen after that, no one knows yet. Even I will be interested in what becomes of him at that point.” She cackled then. “If you live long enough.”

It almost didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Her riddles meant nothing to him, but a little angry part of himself that had caused him trouble as a child looked up. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” she said, laughing in her own insane way. She spoke in a strangely smooth yet hoarse voice like a woman who had too much drink in her life comforting a child. “He grants the heart’s desires. He is doing this for a few others, and now that he is unprotected, more and more will come to tax him. You will be another if you can keep him close enough.” She started to laugh again. “He is a double edged sword, that one. Not that you’ll understand that, thick as you are.”

Let her ramble. Crazy witch. He knelt, leaning against the ruin of a statue to look at the mosquito breeding ground. There was the occasional disturbance of the dark water’s surface as an eel came up to nibble something. Eels and mosquito eggs. They were better company than the witches. The lichen and mud covered stone he leaned against had probably once been white. Ruins lay scattered all over the swamp. The first time they had traveled through here with Jory and Daveth, also dead, he had wondered what the domed building half-buried in a lake had been used for. It was like no architecture he had seen before. Now they were just scattered broken stones, and he couldn’t care less about the statue of a headless woman he leaned against.

He glanced to his side to find a stone to skip across the pond only to find Flemeth’s leering face inches from him. She looked positively demonic in the low light, the shadows of her craggy face deeper while only her eyes and teeth gleamed. He let out a high shriek, kicking back from the visage. He lay sprawled on the earth feeling his heart hammer away as the witch watched him like a crouched gargoyle. “You are not the first fair outcast princeling to visit me with a dark rebel by your side.”

Alistair stared at the weird woman. “You know who I am?”

“Isn’t that obvious,” she said, almost flirtatiously. “You resemble him quite a bit you know. Not as fair but perhaps a bit wiser.” She crawled to him then, looking too much like a giant spider with the face of an old woman. He scooted back with his eyes fixed on hers. Had she changed or was it just the shadows? Prophesies and riddles.

The leer turned to regret and a deep sorrow he would have never guessed the witch was capable of. “I warned him. His dark rebel would betray him if he kept him close, each time worse than the last.” Alistair didn’t know what to say to that so he stayed silent. Dark rebel. Did she mean Loghain? Breaking into a chuckle, the witch patted his cheek. “Oh do not worry, lad. Sometimes things have a way of turning out like they’re supposed to.”

She left then to wander about the swamps. Good riddance, Alistair thought as he watched her back retreat into the thick, twisted woods. How much longer was he going to be stuck with them? He got up, brushing dirt off his butt and legs. When finished, he stayed slumped over. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so miserable. Eels and mosquitoes in a dismal, foggy swamp. And witches. Mean, insane witches. The cold never left him. His hands, feet, and nose were always numb. What would the darkspawn do to ... he didn’t want to think about what they would do to Duncan’s corpse. After seeing what the darkspawn did in the tower to the bodies ... no. Their deaths were bad enough, but he wanted to think about that rather than what to do next. The future was a grey nothingness, formless, and he had no idea what to do. Every time he tried, his thoughts all descended into chaos.

There was no love lost between them, but Cailan was still his half-brother. They had avoided each other at Ostagar. Alistair had been more than happy to focus on his duties and find solace in the Wardens’ company. They were his true brothers. But ... Cailan dead. And Loghain! How could that monster do this? That mean old bastard deserved the gallows. He shouldn’t even be beheaded as fitted a noble. Give him the death of any common murderer. Murderer. That bastard had murdered hundreds of men and women. Soldiers sworn to service. Wardens. His own king. Duncan. Alistair thought of the brutality of Duncan’s death. It must have hurt. How long had it taken? Had he suffered? His body left to the darkspawn. Duncan deserved better. They all did. Alistair was ready to put Loghain’s head on a pike to rot.

“See? Here is your friend now,” Flemeth said. Alistair was getting really sick of the witch’s habit of appearing and disappearing. “You worry too much, young man.”

Alistair turned to the hut’s entrance to see the elf come out looking a little pale but otherwise whole enough. He wanted to weep in relief. “Oh thank the Maker you’re alive.”

As relived as Alistair was, the elf didn’t seem to notice and just kept up the distance he had maintained since they met. “Yes,” he said, his soft-spoken voice even more subdued, so at odds with the depth and command he could use when he wished. The elf looked away, shifting in unease. “Thank you, Flemeth. Morrigan told me how you saved us.”

“It was no trouble lad.” Now she acts all normal, Alistair grumped to himself. Nooo, Rav doesn’t get the creepy swamp witch routine. He gets the let’s have tea and crumpets version. And if I told him how crazy she is, he wouldn’t believe me.

“Of all the Wardens, why us?” Alistair had been holding that question back for days now, but Maker! Why hadn’t she saved Duncan or the King when she could have?

The predatory gleam was back. “You do not like help from us illegal mages?”

Raviathan shifted, giving both her and Alistair hard, unfriendly glares.

“No, it’s not ... I mean thank you, but why?”

“Should I have taken on the hoard all by myself? Ha!” That odd cackle started up again. “You do not live my age through stupidity.”

Heat warmed Alistair’s cheeks. “But Duncan. Then why save us at all?”

“Are you not Wardens? There is a Bight on, dear boy. And without the Grey Wardens, this land will be swallowed up whole and corrupted for generations to come. If there is to be any chance, it is with you. You two are all that stands between us and destruction. Is that enough reason to risk myself?”

The elf bit his lips, eyes downcast. “All the Grey Wardens are dead?”

“Yes, lad,” she said gently. Alistair’s jaw set at the unfairness of it. All he got the last few days was mocked or stupid riddles. Not that he wanted their sympathy, but he was the one who knew the Wardens. They were his friends who had been betrayed.

“Then the responsibility does fall to us, doesn’t it.” He looked at Alistair, and Alistair was again impressed with the elf’s large eyes that gleamed bright even in the gloom.

There was an otherness about elves that haunted him. When they had been in the Wilds to get darkspawn blood and the treaties, Alistair caught himself staring at the elf. Part of it was that he hadn’t seen many elves, and that alone made for interest. The few messengers and servants at Ostagar had fascinated him, and he wanted to get to know them better, but they were so skittish. His few awkward attempts at conversation had only garnered stares and polite requests for the job he wanted them to do. They were so beautiful though. Slight, slender creatures that looked too delicate for the work they did, too fine for the heavy labor they were forced to do. Alistair would have been happy just to be around them, especially when they sang at night. Eyes with jewel-bright colors flashed brighter than fire at dawn and twilight.

The elf bit his lips again. “The Blight must be ended.”

“The Blight,” Alistair spat. That subject snapped him out of his reverie. “Loghain must be brought to justice. It’s because of him all the others are gone. Without the Grey Wardens what hope do we have?” Anger rose from the pain. “The King and Grey Wardens had been winning every battle so far. We could have stopped the Blight if he hadn’t betrayed us. Now? Any hope we had of defeating the Blight is gone.”

“How do we contact the rest of the Grey Wardens?”

Alistair shrugged, falling back into despair. “Cailan,” his voice broke. He didn’t know his half-brother well at all, had only talked to him once as a child and had been ignored in favor of Eamon’s sword collection. Even in the camp the two almost never saw each other. Once or twice their eyes met, but nothing was said.