Asunder (32 page)

            "Leave her alone!" Rhys roared. He rushed past her, striking at the demon with his staff . When the orb touched it, a powerful light flashed and the demon screamed in agony. It fell back, flailing wildly, and just barely caught the sides of the doorway before tumbling down the cellar stairs.

           
"Maker take you and your foul magic!"

            Its mouth gaped wide, stretching all the way down to its chest, and an icy blizzard belched forth. The blast whipped painfully across Evangeline's face, and she would have screamed if she were able. Rhys reeled back, but at the same time summoned a magical barrier that spared both of them from the worst of it.

            He quickly grabbed her around the waist, dragging her like a statue back into the kitchen. There he dropped her onto the floor. Breathing hard, he touched a hand to her forehead. She felt the spell rushing into her, pushing out the paralysis all at once.

            She gasped for breath. "Watch out!" she cried.

            The demon screeched as it leapt on Rhys from behind. He was knocked to the floor, and it sank its teeth into his shoulder as they landed. Blood spurted, and Rhys shouted in agony. He struggled, trying to wrestle the demon off his back, but it was too strong.

            Evangeline jumped to her feet. She lifted her sword high with both hands and brought it down on the demon. The blade struck home, digging deep into its back, and her power disrupted its magic.

            It released Rhys's shoulder, rising as bluish blood seeped from its wounds. Baleful eyes glared at Evangeline. "Y
ou have learned nothing, you wicked fool!"

            "Maker take your evil!" she snarled. With a great swing of her sword, she took off the demon's head.

            The head disintegrated before it hit the ground. As the body stumbled back, hands grasping blindly in the air, black energy roared up from the bleeding stump. And then its body began to fall apart, dissolving into a brackish morass until finally there was nothing.

            She breathed heavily, her heart racing in reaction. Rhys stared up at her from the floor, cradling his wounded shoulder. "I . . . think that should do the trick," he said.

            "Let's hope so."

            "Nice swing, by the way."

            Already the room was changing. The biting chill had lifted, and the pool of blood on the floor was gone, but the darkness remained. They were left in a dark and empty farm house, like a place long abandoned . . . any signs that something terrible had happened there were gone, but she could still feel the evil soaked into every floorboard.

            Evangeline looked around, keeping her sword ready just in case. "Why isn't it all gone? I thought you said the demon created this."

            "The demon kept Cole trapped here, but the nightmare is his." Rhys began casting a spell, its soothing blue light sinking into his shoulder and knitting flesh back together. "Now we just need to find him, before another demon swoops in. They’re very territorial."

            She didn't like the sound of that. Part of her had hoped the demon was the one from the laboratory, but apparently not. That demon would undoubtedly be wherever Pharamond himself was. The idea that it could be in two places at once baffled her . . . but then again, wasn't she? Her body was in the real world, and the rest of her was here in the Fade.

            While Rhys healed himself, she searched for Cole. Initially she considered the cellar. That was where the demon had ascended from, and it struck her as the sort of place a demon— and, indeed, a father— might try to trap someone.

            When Evangeline opened the door, however, she found it led down into pitch blackness. A raw fear pulsated down there, something that spoke of childhood terrors and long hours submerged in hopelessness. She closed the door quickly, her heart racing, and berated herself for such foolishness. She was a warrior. Her father had raised a hand against her only when she deserved it, nothing more. These fears were not her own.

            And yet they seemed so real.

            And then another thought occurred to her: Why would the demon have come looking for Cole if he was already in the cellar? The suspicion nettled her . . . until she remembered the whimper she'd heard in the kitchen.

            "Is something wrong?" Rhys asked as she walked back inside.

            She didn't answer, and instead listened carefully. Nothing. Slowly she began to open the kitchen cabinets one by one. Each was empty, containing only dust and evidence of long neglect.

            "What are you looking for?" Rhys asked again, annoyed.

            And then she opened the last cabinet. Inside crouched a filthy young boy, perhaps twelve years in age and with shaggy blond hair hanging in front of his eyes. His face was filled with stark terror, wide eyes having long drained of tears that now stained his cheeks . . . and worst of all, a little girl was squeezed in there with him. She was half his age, held in a crushing grip, with one hand clamped over her mouth as if to keep her quiet.

            Only she was dead.

            The young boy began shaking, fighting against sobs that threatened to overwhelm him. "Please don't tell," he begged Evangeline in a quivering whisper. "Mama told us to hide. We have to hide."

            "Cole?" Rhys approached behind her, horrified.

            Evangeline didn't know what to do. The little boy shook even more profusely, new tears welling in his eyes— but he made not a single sound. She wasn't sure he even knew who they were . . . or who he was.

            She reached out and removed Cole's hand from the little girl's mouth. "Bunny was crying," he explained in a tiny voice. "Mama told us to be quiet. I only wanted her to be quiet."

            Gently Evangeline took the girl from his arms, and he only reluctantly gave her up. She weighed almost nothing, just skin and bones and the slightest wisp of a yellow dress. The sort a child would have been proud to own, something she might have thought was pretty. The dead girl dissolved into nothingness the moment she left the cabinet.

            She looked helplessly at Rhys. He gently moved her aside and crouched down next to the cabinet. "Cole? Do you know who I am?"

            The little boy stared at him, terror visibly fighting with alarm. His breaths became rapid and anxious. Rhys reached out to touch him, but then stopped . . . a dagger had appeared in the boy's hands. Cole's dagger. The boy held it up in an obvious threat, a desperate rage slowly overtaking his face.

            "I won't let you hurt Mama anymore," he seethed. "I'll
stop
you."

            Evangeline almost pulled Rhys back. She had no idea if they could be killed in the Fade, but she wasn't eager to find out. But Rhys simply held up his hands to the boy in surrender. "Shhh," he whispered. "I'm not here to hurt you, or anyone."

            The shaking dagger slowly raised, the point of it touching Rhys's neck. The little boy held it there, alternating between sharp sobs and frightened whimpers. His eyes were incredibly intense.

            And then the boy's shaking stopped. "Rhys?" he asked with sudden recognition, his voice so pitiful and hopeful it was heart- wrenching.

            Rhys nodded.

            The dagger clattered to the floor, and all at once the little boy spilled out of the cabinet. Only he was a little boy no longer. He was the young man Evangeline had seen earlier in the city square, older and dressed in blood- splattered leathers.

            He buried his head in Rhys's chest, agonized sobs ripped from somewhere deep in his soul, and Rhys simply held him. He said soothing things, and that made the young man cry all the harder.

            And then the shack was gone. Evangeline looked around, and saw they were back in the burned field. It was completely empty, as if the farm house never existed. But it had existed, once. Deep in her heart, she knew that for Cole it had gone from being a nightmare to a memory . . . an awful memory the Fade had dredged up from some dark and dreadful place where it should have remained buried.

            She stood there, watching awkwardly as Rhys cradled the young man, and her heart broke.

            As Adrian walked through the city with Wynne and the golem at her side, she noticed everything had become strangely empty. The city no longer burned, and the streets seemed abandoned. There were no fleeing people, no rampaging darkspawn . . . just dark windows and a lonely wind that fluttered Wynne's white cloak.

            In fact, it seemed as if the buildings themselves had changed as well. The architecture was different, more like the peaked roofs and whitewashed stone she would expect to see in Orlais. It wasn't until she saw the white tower rising in the distance that she realized this was Val Royeaux.

            "We're in the capital?" she asked incredulously.

            Wynne nodded. "Someone's version of it. Perhaps Pharamond's."

            Adrian had been out of the tower often enough that she knew Val Royeaux's main streets fairly well . . . yet she didn't recognize where they were. It was like an impression of the city, or a painting created by someone who had never been there but had had it described to them, and forgot to add in a single sign that it was inhabited by anyone.

            It was oddly unsettling.

            A summoned wisp led the way, although truth be told it was already obvious they were heading toward the White Spire. The trick, as it turned out, was navigating through the city. Val Royeaux's streets were winding and even sometimes confusing in real life; here in this Fade version they were a literal maze. Several times already they'd encountered dead ends and been forced to double back, Wynne scowling irritably at the delay.

            "What if you had come here on your own?" Adrian abruptly asked her. "What would you have done if we hadn't been here to help you?"

            "Died," Shale said.

            Wynne shot the golem an annoyed glance. "The demon is hiding. It has created all of this for our benefit, forcing us to hunt it down. Had we not all been drawn through the Veil, it might have been bold enough to confront me directly."

            "And then what would you have done?" Adrian persisted.

            "Died," Shale snickered.

            "I would
not
have died," Wynne archly corrected them. "I would have defeated it, as I shall when we finally reach it."

            "Just as it defeated the Archdemon?"

            "Technically speaking, I created the Archdemon."

            "Technically speaking, I watched the elderly mage be blown across the square."

            "You know very well, Shale, that demons do not create everything in the Fade. They set the stage, as it were, and we fill it with our own dreams and nightmares."

            "Perhaps it should try having less potent nightmares."

            "We could always have ended up in
your
nightmare, Shale, and encountered a giant pigeon instead of the Archdemon. Would that have pleased you more?"

            "I would have enjoyed fighting it more."

            "I'll keep it in mind for our next visit. Maker knows we all exist to please you."

            Adrian watched as the two of them carried on. They were clearly old friends, accustomed to each other's foibles and unafraid to point them out. It was also clear that Adrian was an outsider. The way they walked just a bit faster than her, subtly excluding her from their company and conversation, was enough for her to notice even if she didn't comment on it. It made her miss Rhys all the more.

            T oughts of Rhys made her heart clench a little. She should have gone with him, she knew that now. At the time she wanted to punish him, not for what the demon claimed but because it was obvious he didn't trust her. It hadn't seemed that long ago they were confidantes. But now? Now he kept secrets. How many opportunities did he have to tell her about Cole, and yet remained silent? He'd learned the truth about Ser Evangeline's mission and didn't say a thing. That told her he thought she either couldn't keep a secret or didn't possess the judgment to not make things worse.

            Yes, she had her faults, but so did Rhys. His temper was almost as bad as hers, and he trusted far too easily. She was constantly watching out for his interests because he refused to. Sometimes she wondered if he intended to die. He certainly couldn't go about it any more efficiently if he did.

            Adrian had few friends within the Libertarians even though she led them— actually, if she were honest about it, she had none. The other mages viewed her as useful, the kind of person who spoke her mind even when they were too timid. Rhys had always supported her, however. He stood by her side and believed in the same things she did, believed that the Circle was a place of oppression and that mages needed to be free. With him, achieving change seemed possible. Without him, she simply felt alone.