There and Back Again Ch. 134

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four: Inescapable

I spent a while unsuccessfully scouring my cell for anything that would help with an escape. Clearly the Architect had gotten better at holding prisoners since the events of the book "The Calling" -- unfortunately. I found a few pebbles, some moss, but nothing that could be used to pick locks, nothing that could even be a credible weapon.

I examined the crude padlock in more detail; it was a massive, black, iron contraption that I'd have no chance at breaking. It looked like it would probably be easy to pick -- not that I had any such skill -- but that would still require a pin or blade or something. I searched my pockets, examined my clothing, but I had nothing. My hair was tied back with a simple elastic. I wasn't even wearing my underwire bra; the stitching had started falling apart months before, and I'd switched to the traditional, if less comfortable, breast band.

I must start carrying more stuff in my armour.

"Nothing," I declared in disgust. "Who knew darkspawn made such good housekeepers?"

Faren barked out a tired laugh. "What are we going to do?"

I sighed. "Wait to be rescued, I suppose."

"Do you think she made it?" His voice sounded unsure, almost frightened. I couldn't blame him.

"Of course," I replied, with more certainty than I felt. I hope. I couldn't stand the thought that Avanna hadn't made it; it would take days for Alistair and Aedan to realise we were missing. They'd never find us. "And I'm already picturing an angry Aedan decapitating that asshole."

Faren laughed.

The night was boring, but also excruciating. I was exhausted, between the battle and the sleepless night, but knew I didn't dare fall asleep; there was no knowing what the Architect might do to me if I let his mana go -- and I had to assume if I fell asleep, I'd lose it, given how much concentration it took to hold on. For a while, Faren entertained me with stories of growing up in Dust Town. It was clear he missed his sister; I hoped eventually he'd be able to go back to Orzammar and be near her and the baby.

"I wonder if she misses Bhelen?" I mused.

"I imagine. He may have been a mark, and she a noble hunter, but she told me he was kind to her. I don't know that it was love, but it might have become that, eventually. It was good of Sereda to make her part of the Aeducan household, but she's still casteless. It's not likely she'll have suitors, or friends; I imagine she'll be lonely."

I winced. "Maybe...maybe you're wrong. Sereda was trying to fix things."

"It will take time, though. Nothing changes fast in Orzammar. My nephew will have a family, though, and status; that's all I could hope for."

I promised myself silently that if we lived through this, I'd make sure Faren got to at least go visit.

It was clear Faren was tired, and weak from blood loss. When he started nodding off mid-sentence, I scolded him into trying to sleep -- as well as he could while tied to a chair, at any rate.

It was a testament to his fatigue how soon his snored echoed around the chamber; I didn't mind, for once, hoping it would help me stay awake. I contemplated trying to exercise or something, but couldn't talk myself into it in my tired state. Instead, I alternately stood and knelt, going for positions I knew I'd never fall asleep in.

After a few hours, the torch sputtered out; not wanting to wake Faren, I sighed and continued my vigil in the dark.

I held my bladder for as long as I could; they'd not provided me with a bucket or chamber pot, and the discomfort was helping me stay awake. Finally unable to hold on any longer, I surreptitiously crouched in the back corner of my cell, nose wrinkled in disgust.

Utha bustled through the door an indeterminate amount of time later, waking Faren with a start. The ghoul carried a glowing stone of some sort, I assumed an arcane lamp something like those we used at Soldier's Peak. To my relief, she left it sitting on a small ledge jutting out of the far wall. She proceeded to fish through my backpack, which still sat on the floor opposite from my cage; she found the last of the jerky, feeding it to Faren and offering him water from the spare water skin I kept. She brought in two hurlocks to help guard him, then let him free to pee; she bound him to the chair again when he was done, and he was so exhausted he didn't even struggle.

She didn't bring me any food, even when Faren protested; I wasn't that disappointed, given how unwell I felt generally, and just sipped at the water skin the Architect had left with me the night before.

When Faren had finished eating, the ghoul administered a potion of some sort; by the dwarf's sputtering, I assumed it tasted awful. She didn't answer -- being mute, of course -- when he demanded to know what it was, but if anything he seemed slightly less weak, less pale than he'd been before. I wondered if it was like the potion Avernus had given me when he'd taken my blood.

It was another few hours before the Architect came back; he settled in to talk while Utha once again began taking Faren's blood.

"How do you know so much about me?" was his first question.

I considered. Is it dangerous to tell him? "I don't exactly know how," I began, "but where you sent me...there was books and things with information about Thedas. Everything about the Blight, but also some about your past."

He glanced sharply at me. "My past?"

I nodded. "I know about Genevieve. And Bregan. The deal you made with that Orlesian mage from the Circle..."

"But that's all?" He looked...relieved.

"I think so. At least, if there's more, I hadn't read them."

"But...who wrote them?"

"Just a man. I never met him. I've no idea where he learned what he knew. People there considered it fiction; they would read them for entertainment."

"Fiction?" The darkspawn looked puzzled.

"Not real. Made up. Just for fun. Like...a fairy tale, or something." He didn't respond. "You don't know what fiction is?"

He just tilted his head slightly.

"Well, you read a lot, right? Have you ever read books about, I don't know, like talking animals, or something impossible like that? Events that never happened?" He tilted his head further. "Well, that explains a few things. Not everything people write down is real, or true. Sometimes it's just a story. Anyway, somehow someone there knows a lot about Thedas. I didn't know it was real until I came back."

He thought about this. "So what else do you know? What happens next?"

"I don't really know." I wasn't going to tell him about the events of the second game, especially about Corypheus. Knowing my luck he'd try to break that maniac out of the Warden prison. I want Hawke to kill him. "After this feud between you and the Mother..."

"The Mother?"

"Yeah, you know. The..." I trailed off as he stared at me blankly. "You don't know? Wait, how many darkspawn have you given Warden blood?"

He grimaced, the expression especially disgusting on his damaged face. "Very few, successfully. The blood I had came from Utha, but it does not always work. Many of them die, and some are...unstable. I postulated a better response with blood from a Warden whose taint was less advanced."

"But we stopped your idiotic invasion plan in Amaranthine." My heart leaped in my chest. "Does that mean you haven't put any Broodmothers through your modified Joining?" Could it be? I leaped to my feet, approaching the bars and gripping them tightly.

He stood and backed away from my cell uneasily. "I have not."

"Don't!" I pressed against the bars pleadingly. "They're not stable. Like, the worst reaction you've seen, a hundred times worse." I didn't know if it was true for all Broodmothers or only the Mother, but it didn't matter. I'd take any chance to keep the Mother from being freed.

He looked skeptical.

"You'll end up fighting a war against an army raised by angry Broodmothers who want their 'beautiful music' back. Some new, horrific, mutant darkspawn that look like giant bugs will be born." I shuddered as I thought of the Childer grubs, the Children... "Hundreds of your kind will die, with my people caught in the middle. You'll end up begging the Wardens to fix your mistake."

He scoffed. "And why should I believe you? You have demonstrated that you are opposed to my plan. You could be lying."

"But I'm not. Look at me. I'm desperate. You don't want your brethren to die? Then don't free any Broodmothers. Please, you mustn't."

He sighed, breath gusting out with a wheeze. "I must. How else can my brethren reproduce? I do not have enough Warden blood to administer to every darkspawn, but with one freed Broodmother, entire generations of my kind could be free."

The reproduction issue was one of the reasons I always -- in every play through -- killed the Architect. Either he'd be allowing his sentient darkspawn to turn women into Broodmothers, or he'd try again and end up with another unstable Mother, and I would never allow that. Not that I was going to tell him that.

"I know what you have planned, but I promise you, it won't work."

He ignored me and stepped into Faren's cage with Utha; only then did I notice the dwarf was virtually unconscious, slumped in his chair, his skin clammy and pale. I cried out in alarm, but the Architect just bound the wound and helped Utha tie him up again.

"Please, you have to stop. Let him rest. You can't keep taking his blood like this! You're going to kill him." I had so many demands...I knew I'd be ignored, probably for all of them, but I had to try. "Please, just for a few days. Let him make more blood. He needs to eat, too."

The tall darkspawn turned to me. "We are out of suitable food. I have sent out a hunting party, but my brethren are not accustomed to slaughtering animals for human food. I hope to have some later." He coaxed some water down Faren's throat, making the dwarf sputter and cough; he offered me some water from a crude water skin that was blackened and peeling, but I declined in favour of the little amount left in my own. I don't even want to know what that water skin is made of.

He turned to leave, and I tried one more time. "Please, you have to listen to me. Don't free any Broodmothers." Ignoring me, he went through the door. "Please! Don't do it!" I hollered at his back, slumping down despairingly as the door swung shut.

Faren remained barely conscious for several hours, stirring periodically but mostly sleeping awkwardly in his chair. Bored and exhausted, I struggled to stay awake, more than once being startled back to alertness when I felt my grip on the Architect's mana slip. I'd never tried staying awake for days before, and wasn't sure how much longer I'd be able to hold out.

It was then the waking dreams started.

I supposed they'd count as hallucinations, and at first, they were about what you might expect for a person who'd been sleep-deprived for so long. I dreamt of freedom and the outdoors, or cuddling up with Alistair in a massive, soft bed covered in warm blankets. Some of them bordered on erotic, to my embarrassment. And then Faren would stir, or some noise would filter through the door from the darkspawn beyond, and I'd be awake again, scrambling to solidify my hold on the Architect's mana. I had some waking nightmares, too -- darkspawn closing in, the sensation of the taint, the Mother shrieking at her Children -- and from those, I'd wake screaming.

By far the most frightening, however, were dreams of Earth. I'd get glimpses of a hospital room, or my doctor's anxious face; it disturbed me, because I couldn't be sure they weren't real. What if I become so exhausted that somehow I slip back there? If I just disappeared, I knew there was no way Faren would survive. The Architect would assume I'd escaped and kill the Warden, taking as much of his blood as they could before running away. I couldn't let that happen. I crouched in a corner, rocking helplessly, trying to maintain my concentration to keep control of the Architect's mana, repeating a mantra that amounted to "don't go back," over and over.

Faren became more alert after a few hours, and tried to help me stay awake, talking to me or shouting at me when I drifted off; he kept telling me to go ahead and go back to Earth, to get free and go find Aedan and Alistair, but I refused. Sadly it was clear it was a losing battle -- eventually I would either fall asleep or go back to Earth. But I was determined to hold on as long as possible.

Some time later, the door opened, and the emissary came in; it startled me from a dream of being in Alistair's arms, safe, and I almost sobbed in disappointment when I realised it wasn't real. The darkspawn mage was glaring at me, expression murderous, but it held out something through the bars, gesturing for me to take it. I was tempted to grab its arm and pull, bashing its head into the bars, but knew Faren would pay the price, so instead I held out my arm, palm up. It dropped a slimy, warm lump into my hand, and I looked down to realise it was some sort of meat -- half cooked, partly charred, stringy meat with the juices still running off of it. I gagged.

The emissary went into Faren's cell and started feeding the bound dwarf more of the same; Faren, never as picky an eater as I was, took several bites, but even he had trouble chewing it and getting it down. I stared at the mass in my hand, debating with myself about whether to eat it, when Faren asked the question I'd been dreading the answer to.

"Ancestors' asses, what sort of meat is this?"

The emissary didn't answer right away, giving Faren a few large gulps of water and then dropping the water skin where I could reach it. It relocked Faren's cage, and then paused at the door on its way out, with what I could have sworn was a smirk on its tainted face.

"Horse meat," it finally answered.

I dropped the meat I held like it was poison, jumping away from it with a disgusted gasp. Faren groaned in revulsion. The two of us shared despairing glances, before the tears came and disturbed my vision.

Horse meat.

There was no nearby road, no major trail that I was aware of, no farms. There should not have been any human traffic where they could capture a horse for meat. No horses lived in the Deep Roads. The only likely nearby horse was the one I'd sent Avanna off on, when we'd first sensed the darkspawn. The timing was off; Avanna should have been safely back at Soldier's Peak by then...but clearly, something had gone very, very wrong. And if they'd found the horse, they'd more than likely found the woman, too.

They tried to feed me Sadie. I might not have been fond of horseback riding, but my borrowed steed had deserved better than that. And poor Avanna, the woman who'd volunteered to be my bodyguard, was probably captive, somewhere.

"What have you done with her?" I heard Faren demand, obviously coming to the same conclusion I had. "Where's the woman?"

The emissary gurgled a mocking laugh as its only reply.

"You'd better not have harmed her," I shouted. Still laughing, the darkspawn closed the door behind itself as it left. "I'll kill you!" I got no response.

I slumped to the ground, defeated. For all I know, she's already being turned into a Broodmother. I heard Faren mutter some comforting nonsense, but all I could do was put my head in my hands and cry. And the worst is, I don't know if I'm crying harder because of what they've done to her, or because I'm not going to be rescued.

I prayed for a while, fully feeling the hypocrisy of praying to a Maker I wasn't sure I believed in and never honoured when I wasn't in dire straits. Faren, in his brief bouts of alertness, kept encouraging me to go back to Earth.

"I'm not leaving you here!"

"Sierra, they need to know what's happened here. You need to go and find the Wardens and bring them here. You need to defeat the Architect and kill the Mother before she can try to destroy Amaranthine. You know this! My life isn't worth all that."

"I can't, Faren. I'd rather die. I can barely live with myself after Duncan..." I gulped, wiping tears from my eyes irritably. "I just can't."

He growled impotently with frustration. "Fine, you won't leave me...then help me kill myself. Deny this bastard what he wants. You still have that suicide pill?" I nodded, pretty sure I wasn't going to like where he was going. "Next time they offer you water, put the pill into the water. It will dissolve, and I'll drink it. Please, I'm begging you."

I shook my head, mouth open in horror. "No way. No way! I won't even leave you behind to let the darkspawn kill you, and you think I'm going to do it myself?"

"You won't be," he pleaded. "I'll be doing it myself."

"And somehow being an accomplice isn't supposed to bother me?"

"It's my life, Sierra. I was supposed to die in that Carta dungeon, and you saved me. I could have died any time between then and now -- in the Joining, in battle...let me choose. Please, help me choose when I die." He looked away, pain written in every filthy line on his face. "I'm not going to survive this unscathed, not if they keep going. And who knows what terrible things he's going to do with my blood? No. Please."

"I...alright, look. If I get to the point where I know I won't be able to hold on any longer...when it gets to that point, I'll do it. But not before then. Okay? I'll do it and then go back to Earth. But not yet."

He nodded, expression actually grateful. Hating myself, I covered my face again and tried not to cry.

Between my already tired state and the soul-wrenching sorrow, it was much more difficult to stay alert. The Architect came back and tried to talk to me at some point; I was too confused, too disoriented to reply -- especially once it was clear he wouldn't discuss Avanna or Broodmothers. He gave up after a few minutes and left us alone. Faren drifted in and out of consciousness as Utha came once more to take another jar of blood. I crouched in a corner of my cage, arms around my head protectively, and rocked.

What am I going to do? I put myself in this damn cage, and no one knows we're here. It'll be days, if not weeks, before anyone realises we're missing, and by then it will be too late. I can't stay awake forever, and the minute I lose my hold on the Architect's mana, there's no telling what he will do to me...assuming I don't end up back on Earth. And then Faren's death will be my fault. I thoroughly regretted my stupid promise to Faren -- not that I wanted to see him killed by the Architect, but I knew I'd never be able to face myself in a mirror if I survived and he didn't.

The waking dreams got worse, both more frequent and more immersive; jerking up with a start from a particularly disturbing dream of becoming a Broodmother, I wondered if I would even know it when I crossed the line and could no longer tell my dreams from reality. Briefly I felt relieved -- perhaps I won't have to kill Faren after all, if I'm too addled to tell when it's time -- and then immediately felt guilty. I promised, and he's not wrong.

The next time the emissary came in, I requested water, and it handed over a skin for me to drink from while it force-fed Faren more of the improperly cooked horse meat. I caught Faren's eye, and at his firm nod, I dropped the little poison pill into the skin, hands shaking with remorse and guilt. When Faren drank, I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate -- between vivid and horrifying dreams of death and darkspawn -- on Earth.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to Faren, after the emissary left. "I'm so sorry." I choked on a sob.

"It's okay. This...it's a good death. It's okay," he repeated. "Listen, when you get out of here, will you go see my sister? Make sure she's okay? And tell my mother...tell her I love her. She was a terrible mother, but I love her anyway."