Dragon Age - The Kill. Chap 11

Zevran ducked sideways between two towering shelves of books, threw his weight against the heavy wood and heaved with all his strength. There was a moment of teetering furniture and tomes, then a great rush of things falling into other things like a row of dominoes, coupled with panicked yells and the thud of books tumbling to the floor.

The assassin kept running, his breathing harsh and as quiet as he could manage under the circumstances.

He hadn't succeeded in getting to the exit. Running up the stairs and taking the first landing had seen him ploughing straight into a delegation of startled and heavily armed dwarfs, accompanied by three mages who had swiftly begun to cast at him when they'd heard the shouting from below.

Unable to break through, the Crow had retreated and climbed higher in search of somewhere to shake off all the attention he was gathering, and breached the famous Minrathous library—although he hadn't realised this at first. He had seen only marvellous bookcases and towering stacks, and jumped headlong into this vast array of tight corners, hiding places and natural death-traps like a man on fire might leap into a river's flow.

As an added bonus, the mages had stopped hurling magical fire around—either for fear of burning their precious books or incinerating visitors, it didn't matter. It was good, if only because the backs of Zevran's arms and legs were already painfully seared. He could feel the ache of blistered and raw skin, and it was starting to hurt to keep running as the movements tugged at partially melted flesh.

He slowed as he reached the end of a row, feet touching ground more cautiously, tread perfectly silent, breath coming controlled and soft, sullied blades angled as he listened past the sound of his own thundering pulse…

Zevran liked this part of the tower. No more broad stone corridors and staircases that had as much use for concealment as a whore's clothing, nothing but stacks and shelves and wonderful shadows. A clever assassin could hide here for a very long time, if they wished it.

A male voice shouted something in Tevinter, very near, and he tried to catch a glimpse of the speaker in his peripheral vision without completely leaving the row of books he lurked in. Yes…another blood mage, encased in a shimmering shield that resembled heat-haze, with two red-garbed, vacant-eyed slaves in tow.

The assassin sheathed his sword with a whisper of steel, shifted the dar'misu to his right hand and leaned back into his surroundings, fading into the backdrop of ancient leather-bound books and varnished hardwood. He watched the mage creep cautiously past with his staff at the ready. Dark eyes glanced first down the row Zevran was hidden in, then in the other direction. A woman yelled an inquiry from a few shelves away. Someone answered, further off. Then this mage called a reply.

Zevran pounced, clamping a hand around the man's mouth, yanking him backwards out of casual view and stabbing repeatedly at the arcane shield while the mage staff rapped with desperate strength against his skull and teeth bit ineffectually into leather gloves. The struggle ended when magic finally failed to deflect metal, and the body sagged in Zevran's grasp. He grabbed the staff so it wouldn't clatter, lowering the corpse without a noise before he remembered the blood slaves and glanced up.

The elf and human blinked as expression returned to their faces but did not look around like a pair freshly awakened from the Fade; their eyes went straight to Zevran and the dead mage as though they had seen everything but simply been unable to react. Zevran raised a swift finger in the universal gesture for silence, and whether it was the sight of someone killing a hated Tevinter mage or the spreading patch of blood on the dead man's robes that did the trick, neither slave made a noise and they both obediently drew closer when the assassin motioned.

"What are they saying?" he whispered when another shout came from somewhere in the library, and someone replied. The slaves looked at each other and shook their heads. One of them whispered a helpless reply in Tevinter.

Zevran repeated himself in Antivan and it was the elf who brightened, despite the circumstances.

"They're looking for visitors, ser, and hustling them out of the library. They're going to lock the doors after to try and seal you in, then send in some of their thralls."

"Their thralls?"

"Blood slaves, ser, but…from upstairs. I hear some of them have been blood-controlled so many times they obey even when the magic's not on them."

Zevran quirked a brow. "But I heard the slaves from upstairs were valuable. Why throw them in here with an assassin on the loose?"

Shoulders lifted in a shrug beneath the red tunic while the human glanced nervously behind them as another call sounded. "I don't know, ser. Maybe…maybe the magisters want to test some new method. But if not, mundane blood is cheaper than mage blood, no?"

A woman's voice shouted, and the elven slave looked down at the dead mage. "They just called for him, ser…"

Zevran rummaged hastily through voluminous purple robes and liberated the corpse of a potion case, checking it for anything useful and finding only a pair of vials with liquids unknown. He took them anyway, on the basis he could always sell them when he got out.

"One more question then, if I may. Is there any way out of here besides the obvious?"

"I…I don't know, ser. We've only ever used the doors."

Well, it had been worth a try. He grinned bracingly at them, stood and executed an elegant bow, marred somewhat by a wince when the movement tugged his burned skin. "Thank you, my dear. If you would be so kind, count to five before bringing the mages their fallen brother."

"You're just going to leave us here?"

"Oh? Do wish to be lingering when those thralls you mentioned arrive, my dear?"

The elf bit her lip and looked away.

"I am sorry," Zevran said quietly, the words sounding unfamiliar to his ears even though they were in his native tongue, and he vanished back into the stacks.

He shadowed the slaves on their way to one of the doors, burdened as they were by the corpse of their former master, and watched from a safe position as the face of the dead mage was checked, the slaves scrutinised then let out. A pair of mages and a horned qunari in white plate kept watch over the nearby bookcases as everyone leaving the library was inspected and questioned, many of them presenting tokens before being permitted to leave.

Zevran studied the qunari for a moment, wondering if this was one of the thralls. He was carrying an exceptionally large axe and there was the Imperial Chantry's symbol on the breastplate, though splashed in crimson against the white metal rather than the other slaves' combination of gold-on-red. There also seemed to be a large tattoo on one side of his bronze-skinned face…or was it a glyph? It was a glowing white pattern, and while it was too far to make out any details to the design, when the qunari's head turned towards him Zevran could see that the warrior's eyes, too, were shining white.

He felt a shiver travel down his spine when that glowing gaze remained staring in his direction, and pulled back out of view.

So the mages were sending in overly large muscles to deal with an assassin? Zevran shrugged mentally and crept into the library's depths. All he had to do was avoid detection until they gave up, not trip into whatever trap they were plotting, then wait for his chance. He was positive that once things returned to normal he could bluff or sneak his way out. They couldn't keep this magnificent library of theirs closed forever, could they?

Locating a good niche to secrete himself in, he pulled out one of his emergency poultices, soaked a bandage in the stuff and began to tend his burns, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Maybe half an hour had passed before he'd heard the echo of doors being shut around the library, and a further hour went by but for the quiet sounds of footsteps echoing in the still air. It was the kind of silence librarians only dreamed about.

Zevran continued to wait, folded into a comfortable position and fallen back to his assassin training of clenching and relaxing muscles to avoid cramps. It felt like ages since the last time it had been necessary to stay so still for so long, but some things you never forgot how to do. He passed the time by quietly going through his poisons, bombs and limited salves for anything useful, then perusing the spines of books on the nearby shelves—although this turned out to be pointless, considering nothing was in a language he could read. He 'borrowed' something that looked of Dalish origin anyway, and stowed it in his pack.

At least another hour passed before he glimpsed one of the thralls: a black-haired elven man in white mail carrying a dar'misaan and Dalish shield. Zevran watched carefully as the other elf began to walk past the row of shelves leading to his hiding spot, but the thrall abruptly stopped in his tracks, lifted his head as though sniffing, then turned shining white eyes to look unerringly at Zevran's place of concealment.

What…? Can he actually smell me?

Zevran knew he stank—he hadn't bathed since disembarking The Royal Sail, there was blood on him, and he bore the lingering aromas of healing herbs and burnt flesh, but from that far away and with no air movement to carry his scent—

The dark-haired elf remained still for a moment longer, then lifted his head again and shouted a word, which was answered by the sound of distant footsteps becoming rapidly less distant.

Making a decision to strike while the odds were still on his side, Zevran darted out and charged. The thrall saw him coming and readied his shield, curved sword swinging back as he crouched, and the sounds of ringing metal filled the library's air. Zevran circled the armoured man, feinting back and forth to try and get past his guard, but the elf wasn't even trying fight back; he kept his shield at the fore and his defence tight, a tactic that would never win any melee but served as a very effective delay.

Zevran quickly saw this, gave up and decided to run for it, putting his trust into speed and a thrown-down shock bomb to temporarily hide him from view. It might have worked too, had not the qunari thrall appeared in the direction he chose to flee. Zevran skidded to a halt as soon as he saw the warrior, cursed and changed course, blood pounding in his ears and the qunari's shout calling the hunt.

If some magic was helping the thralls track him, which was all his brain could come up with at this point, then hiding wouldn't work. He had to break out of the containment…back where the mages were. That or try to kill these thralls, followed by anyone else the mages decided to send in…any of whom could be elves Shianni had come to rescue.

This is not going to be pleasant.

Ducking and weaving through a series of shelves, he drew to a quietly panting stop when he thought he had a decent lead on his pursuers and strung a hasty tripwire between the lower shelves of two bookcases before dancing back as the dark-haired elf appeared once more. Zevran backed away in an attempt to taunt the other man closer, played up a show of fatigue, and the elf drew closer for every backwards step, then…

…tripped.

The assassin sprang when the other man fell flat on his face with a crash of arms and armour, sword flashing down for the back of an exposed neck…and then the thrall lay dead, his head rolling gently to one side.

Zevran hurriedly wiped his sword clean before returning it to its sheath, grabbed the abandoned dar'misaan from the floor and whirled when he heard someone—the qunari—approaching from behind.

"One of you lies dead," Zevran said in Antivan, voice hitching from lack of breath, "and I don't know about you, but I could go on like this all day!"

The qunari gave no indication he understood or cared, but gave voice to another shattering yell and the Crow once more turned to flee for a more favourable battlefield, but this time there was an elf in the way: a female elf with blonde hair, twin Imperial Edges and flowing white leathers that caused Zevran to feel an actual shiver of racial disgust at viewing, for the distinctive silvery sheen to the armour could only mean it had been made from halla hide.

Like the qunari, her face was marked with a glowing design. Dozens of thin lines encircled her right eye in a pattern that put Zevran in mind of a skeleton leaf, where green flesh had long-since withered away and left only an intricate network of veins.

Judging his chances better against her than a fully-armoured qunari warrior, Zevran pulled a book at random from the shelf beside him and hurled it at the woman's head before jumping to the attack, hoping a quick disabling thrust or clever feint would allow him to slip past and prepare another trap elsewhere.

She ducked to avoid the book.

Zevran flew at her, lashing out with his stolen sword on the way past to encourage her to stay down.

The Imperial Edges she wielded came up, scissoring against one another to catch Zevran's blade between their serrated teeth and jerking the assassin off balance as he kept instinctive hold of the hilt.

There was a shrieking sound and a sharp crack as the Edges ripped in opposite directions, tearing Zevran's sword asunder, and then he was being forced backwards by a flurry of aggressive blows and pressed to defend himself with dagger and broken blade. Stunned, shaken, and fighting for his life all of a sudden, he dared not lower his guard to retreat but fought back for all he was worth, tearing a gash here, suffering one there, until he felt a looming presence behind him and spun in a desperate whirlwind of shattered metal and torn leather.

The heavy flat of the qunari's axe cracked against Zevran's skull, and he dropped like a stone.

He felt, distantly to be sure, his body rolled onto his stomach and his wrists bound behind him, then his pounding head was wrenched sharply back by the hair as he was straddled and pinned down. A woman's voice hissed something into his left ear.

"What was…?" Zevran asked groggily. "I don't…urgh…"

"I said 'hold still!'" the elven woman snapped in Ferelden. "We're disarming you. Try anything and you'll be breathing through your neck."

Zevran lay quietly for a few brain-throbbing seconds, one side of his face now pressed firmly against the ground, before the hands questing through his armour and divesting him of various sharp-edged implements inclined him to comment on the proceedings.

"You know…the last time a deliciously strong woman had me at her mercy, tied up and so forth, we very nearly ended up making love."

"Only nearly?"

Zevran grunted as he was flipped over, and clenched his jaw as his hands were ground into the floor and his own injured back by the weight of the woman atop him. He blinked at the sight of her face, for the white glow had vanished from the blue-sheened lines of ink, and her eyes were so curious a shade as to be almost lavender.

"Was this woman blind?" the woman asked, taking the daggers from his belt and tossing them aside with barely a glance. "You're not bad-looking."

"Ah, a compliment from such lovely lips—"

"Any more weapons?" she interrupted.

"Excuse me?"

"Any more weapons?" the woman repeated patiently. "You were stripped to your smallclothes when you were brought in, or so I was informed, yet you managed to escape, kill one of the lower jailkeepers and her assistant."

Zevran tried for a grin even while his wrists burned pain beneath him. "Always keep something hidden where people are unwilling to look, that is all I can say."

"Indeed." She crossed her arms against his chest as though making herself comfortable, heedless of the blood staining one of them where Zevran had cut her. She tilted her head at him. "So what you're saying is that you stow lockpicks in your underwear? Or do you keep a weapon down there as well?"

"My dear, is this a trick question? You simply look so serious."

"I'm sorry." She smiled. Sweetly. "Do you…have any sort of deadly weapon sheathed in your smallclothes?"

"Naturally I do, but—"

Quick as a flash, one arm reached back and a hand grabbed. Nails dug through cloth and into sensitive flesh, drawing a sharp, pained hiss from between Zevran's teeth.

Smiling wider, but a great deal less sweetly, the woman leaned down until their lips almost brushed and asked in a silken purr, "Shall I remove it, then?"

"I would prefer…that you did not. I am rather…ah…attached to it, you see, and as I was about to say, my dear lady, that…weapon…is more for loving than fighting, yes?"

There was a brief, agonising second after that remark when he feared she actually intended to carry through with her threat, but she let him go and got off him, turning to say something to the hitherto silent qunari and two more white-garbed thralls who seemed to have arrived while Zevran had been…preoccupied.

The assassin shifted position to alleviate the pain in various parts of his body, then, figuring he had nothing to lose at this point, hazarded a guess. "Ciela Tabris?"

They ignored him.

"Only I've come to the Imperium with her cousin Shianni," Zevran continued, hoping name drops would elicit a response. "Soris is alive and well, if that means anything, rescued from the Arl of Denerim's own dungeon..."

The blonde gave him a quick, surprised glance, but her lips pressed closed when the qunari approached Zevran in a couple of swift strides, hauled him ungently to his feet and began to frogmarch him through the library.

"I counsel silence from this point onwards, elf," the giant rumbled above him. "Unless you would prefer to be carried out unconscious."

A babble of Tevinter greeted his ears when the library door was opened. Zevran was fast growing sick of hearing a language he couldn't understand. There were mages, there were the dwarfs from downstairs arguing with them and each other, and there were slaves trying to keep out of the way but still look like they were attending their masters.

At the sight of the apprehended assassin, several robed individuals rushed into the library at speed as though expecting to find the whole place on fire. Zevran himself was kicked to his knees on the stone floor and left there, the four thralls striding silently around him and to the sides of five magisters standing a little apart from the argument in the corridor. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the four knelt and had their hair caressed like good hounds returned from a successful hunt, but the fifth magistra, who had no thrall before her, spat out a curse and levelled her staff at Zevran's head.

At this point Zevran gave up his pretence of not watching and tried to throw himself backwards into the library again—it was that or have his face taken off by a fireball—but found himself suddenly lifted up into the air by magic, floating gently…and then the air itself closed around him from all sides, unyielding as stone, grinding bone against creaking bone, organ against collapsing organ so that he was being squeezed, crushed—

The pressure vanished. He landed flat on the floor, gasping for air and trembling with pain, and for some reason all he could think was: Why?

"I was told the Tower was prepared to sell slaves," a haughty, female and Ferelden voice was stating. "I have decided! I want that one. The Tower wants lyrium, it knows I can deliver, do we have a bargain?"

"You expressed no interest in slaves before now, my lady," a Tevinter-accented voice protested. "In fact, you said you consider the practise repellent! This elf is obviously dangerous, and was brought in personally by a magister for no less than seven sovereigns!"

"What is that to me?" The woman, an armoured dwarf now that Zevran had uncurled enough to try and catch a glimpse of her, put gauntleted hands to hips and lifted her chin disdainfully. "Lyrium is of more use to the mages than gold, no? Trade me this slave and the Tower will have the funds to buy a hundred more like it."

"All your lyrium," the magistra who'd attacked Zevran demanded, her eyes seething with anger. "That elf cost me a valuable servant. It will take months to condition another to such high susceptibility."

"Half my lyrium," the dwarf countered, ignoring the appalled protests of her companions. "For one elf in sore need of healing that should more than suffice."

The magistra glowered at Zevran, but nodded curtly. "So be it." Without another word, she stalked into the library with a sweep of black silk robes.

"Lovely. Someone do pick up my new purchase, or carry it or whatever. Oh, and for the price I just paid, return the slave's equipment. That's mine too now, is it not?"

Swords, daggers and backpack were handed over to a sullen dwarf warrior, while two more helped Zevran off the floor and steadied him, but they didn't remove the bindings from his wrists.

The dwarf woman dusted her hands briskly and beamed. "Splendid. Shall we be off then?"

Zevran, slightly recovered from his brush with death-by-compaction and somewhat relieved that he seemed to be getting away from the mages, even if it was still as a slave, finally managed to find his voice. "Ah…mistress? I would be able to serve your whims much more effectively if my hands were untied. Also, it would make the stairs easier to navigate."

"Perhaps," the dwarf agreed amiably. "But it would be best if the bindings remained while we are still within the Tower. The mages might get all worried, otherwise. Assassins make them aware they are not immortal after all." She sniffed, then gave Zevran a sidelong smirk. "Besides, I seem to recall the painted elf having a fondness for chains and rope."

"Painted…?"

Zevran blinked in astonishment, staring down at the woman whom he'd only ever known as a great lumbering golem, then tried to recover with as elegant a bow as he could pull off.

"Well, then! Mistress." He raised his head, golden eyes gleaming, and smiled at the amused expression before him. "As you desire, yes?"

"Yes," Shayle agreed, still grinning ear to ear. "On, then."

Zevran followed, the dwarfs surrounding him like a personal guard and two mages in tow, but he glanced back once where he'd last seen Ciela Tabris and the other thralls. The white-clad slaves were following their masters in the opposite direction. She looked back as well, her eyes finding Zevran's, her face at once questioning and dismayed, then the stone of the tower walls were between them and Zevran returned to concentrating on making his bruised body walk without stumbling as he followed Shayle downstairs.

Shayle!

Zevran grinned to himself again, feeling light-headed with relief.

He couldn't wait to talk to her.